G. A. Custer.

“BOOTS AND SADDLES”
OR LIFE IN DAKOTA WITH GENERAL CUSTER

BY
ELIZABETH B. CUSTER

WITH PORTRAIT AND MAP

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE

Copyright, 1885, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.

Dedicated
TO
MY HUSBAND
THE ECHO OF WHOSE VOICE HAS BEEN MY INSPIRATION

PREFACE.

One of the motives that have actuated me in recalling these simple annals of our daily life, has been to give a glimpse to civilians of garrison and camp life—about which they seem to have such a very imperfect knowledge.

This ignorance exists especially with reference to anything pertaining to the cavalry, which is almost invariably stationed on the extreme frontier.

The isolation of the cavalry posts makes them quite inaccessible to travellers, and the exposure incident to meeting warlike Indians does not tempt the visits of friends or even of the venturesome tourist. Our life, therefore, was often as separate from the rest of the world as if we had been living on an island in the ocean.

Very little has been written regarding the domestic life of an army family, and yet I cannot believe that it is without interest; for the innumerable questions that are asked about our occupations, amusements, and mode of house-keeping, lead me to hope that the actual answers to these queries contained in this little story will be acceptable. This must also be my apology for entering in some instances so minutely into trifling perplexities and events, which went to fill up the sum of our existence.

E. B. C.

148 East 18th Street,
New York City.

CONTENTS.

OUTLINE MAP
of portions of
MONTANA & DAKOTA

Copyright, 1885, by Harper & Brothers

BOOTS AND SADDLES.

CHAPTER I.
CHANGE OF STATION.

General Custer graduated at West Point just in time to take part in the battle of Bull Run. He served with his regiment—the 5th Cavalry—for a time, but eventually was appointed aide-de-camp to General McClellan. He came to his sister’s home in my native town, Monroe, Michigan, during the winter of 1863, and there I first met him. In the spring he returned to the army in Virginia, and was promoted that summer, at the age of twenty-three, from captain to brigadier-general. During the following autumn he came to Monroe to recover from a flesh-wound, which, though not serious, disabled him somewhat. At that time we became engaged. When his twenty days’ leave of absence had expired he went back to duty, and did not return until a few days before our marriage, in February, 1864.

We had no sooner reached Washington on our wedding-journey than telegrams came, following one another in quick succession, asking him to give up the rest of his leave of absence, and hasten without an hour’s delay to the front. I begged so hard not to be left behind that I finally prevailed. The result was that I found myself in a few hours on the extreme wing of the Army of the Potomac, in an isolated Virginia farm-house, finishing my honeymoon alone. I had so besought him to allow me to come that I did not dare own to myself the desolation and fright I felt. In the preparation for the hurried raid which my husband had been ordered to make he had sent to cavalry head-quarters to provide for my safety, and troops were in reality near, although I could not see them.

The general’s old colored servant, Eliza, comforted me, and the Southern family in the house took pity upon my anxiety. It was a sudden plunge into a life of vicissitude and danger, and I hardly remember the time during the twelve years that followed when I was not in fear of some immediate peril, or in dread of some danger that threatened. After the raid was ended, we spent some delightful weeks together, and when the regular spring campaign began I returned to Washington, where I remained until the surrender and the close of the war.

After that we went to Texas for a year, my husband still acting as major-general in command of Volunteers. In 1866 we returned to Michigan, and the autumn of the same year found us in Kansas, where the general assumed charge of the 7th (Regular) Cavalry, to which he had been assigned, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Regular Army. We remained in Kansas five years, during which time I was the only officer’s wife who always followed the regiment. We were then ordered, with the regiment, to Kentucky. After being stationed in Elizabethtown for two years, we went to Dakota in the spring of 1873.

When orders came for the 7th Cavalry to go into the field again, General Custer was delighted. The regiment was stationed in various parts of the South, on the very disagreeable duty of breaking up illicit distilleries and suppressing the Ku-klux. Fortunately for us, being in Kentucky, we knew very little of this service. It seemed an unsoldierly life, and it was certainly uncongenial; for a true cavalryman feels that a life in the saddle on the free open plain is his legitimate existence.

Not an hour elapsed after the official document announcing our change of station had arrived before our house was torn up. In the confusion I managed to retire to a corner with an atlas, and surreptitiously look up the territory to which we were going. I hardly liked to own that I had forgotten its location. When my finger traced our route from Kentucky almost up to the border of the British Possessions, it seemed as if we were going to Lapland.

From the first days of our marriage, General Custer celebrated every order to move with wild demonstrations of joy. His exuberance of spirits always found expression in some boyish pranks, before he could set to work seriously to prepare for duty. As soon as the officer announcing the order to move had disappeared, all sorts of wild hilarity began. I had learned to take up a safe position on top of the table; that is, if I had not already been forcibly placed there as a spectator. The most disastrous result of the proceedings was possibly a broken chair, which the master of ceremonies would crash, and, perhaps, throw into the kitchen by way of informing the cook that good news had come. We had so few household effects that it was something of a loss when we chanced to be in a country where they could not be replaced. I can see Eliza’s woolly head now, as she thrust it through the door to reprimand her master, and say, “Chairs don’t grow on trees in these yere parts, gen’l.” As for me, I was tossed about the room, and all sorts of jokes were played upon me before the frolic was ended. After such participation in the celebration, I was almost too tired with the laughter and fun to begin packing.

I know that it would surprise a well-regulated mover to see what short work it was for us to prepare for our journeys. We began by having a supply of gunny-sacks and hay brought in from the stables. The saddler appeared, and all our old traps that had been taken around with us so many years were once more tied and sewed up. The kitchen utensils were plunged into barrels, generally left uncovered in the hurry; rolls of bedding encased in waterproof cloth or canvas were strapped and roped, and the few pictures and books were crowded into chests and boxes. When these possessions were loaded upon the wagon, at the last moment there always appeared the cook’s bedding to surmount the motley pile. Her property was invariably tied up in a flaming quilt representing souvenirs of her friends’ dresses. She followed that last instalment with anxious eyes, and, true to her early training, grasped her red bandanna, containing a few last things, while the satchel she scorned to use hung empty on her arm.

In all this confusion no one was cross. We rushed and gasped through the one day given us for preparation, and I had only time to be glad with my husband that he was going back to the life of activity that he so loved. His enforced idleness made it seem to him that he was cumbering the earth, and he rejoiced to feel that he was again to have the chance to live up to his idea of a soldier. Had I dared to stop in that hurried day and think of myself all the courage would have gone out of me. This removal to Dakota meant to my husband a reunion with his regiment and summer campaigns against Indians; to me it meant months of loneliness, anxiety, and terror. Fortunately there was too much to do to leave leisure for thought.

Steamers were ready for us at Memphis, and we went thither by rail to embark. When the regiment was gathered together, after a separation of two years, there were hearty greetings, and exchanges of troublous or droll experiences; and thankful once more to be reunited, we entered again, heart and soul, into the minutest detail of one another’s lives. We went into camp for a few days on the outskirts of Memphis, and exchanged hospitalities with the citizens. The bachelors found an elysium in the society of many very pretty girls, and love-making went on either in luxurious parlors or in the open air as they rode in the warm spring weather to and from our camp. Three steamers were at last loaded and we went on to Cairo, where we found the trains prepared to take us into Dakota.

The regiment was never up to its maximum of twelve hundred men, but there may have been eight or nine hundred soldiers and as many horses. The property of the companies—saddles, equipments, arms, ammunition, and forage—together with the personal luggage of the officers, made the trains very heavy, and we travelled slowly. We were a week or more on the route. Our days were varied by the long stops necessary to water the horses, and occasionally to take them out of the cars for exercise. My husband and I always went on these occasions to loose the dogs and have a frolic and a little visit with our own horses. The youth and gamins of the village gathered about us as if we had been some travelling show. While on the journey one of our family had a birthday. This was always a day of frolic and fun, and even when we were on the extreme frontier, presents were sent for into the States, and we had a little dinner and a birthday cake. This birthday that came during the journey, though so inopportune, did not leave utterly without resources the minds of those whose ingenuity was quickened by affection. The train was delayed that day for an unusually long time; our colored cook, Mary, in despair because we ate so little in the “twenty-minutes-for-refreshments” places, determined on an impromptu feast. She slyly took a basket and filled it at the shops in the village street. She had already made friends with a woman who had a little cabin tucked in between the rails and the embankment, and there the never absent “eureka” coffee-pot was produced and most delicious coffee dripped. Returning to the car stove, which she had discovered was filled with a deep bed of coals, she broiled us a steak and baked some potatoes. The general and I were made to sit down opposite each other in one of the compartments. A board was brought, covered with a clean towel, and we did table-legs to this impromptu table. We did not dare move, and scarcely ventured to giggle, for fear we should overturn the laden board in our laps. For dessert, a large plate of macaroons, which were an especial weakness of mine, was brought out as a surprise. Mary told me, with great glee, how she had seen the general prowling in the bakers’ shops to buy them, and described the train of small boys who followed him when he came back with his brown paper parcel. “Miss Libbie,” she said, “they thought a sure enough gen’l always went on horseback and carried his sword in his hand.”

We were so hungry we scarcely realized that we were anything but the embodiment of picturesque grace. No one could be otherwise than awkward in trying to cut food on such an uncertain base, while Mary had taken the last scrap of dignity away from the general’s appearance by enveloping him in a kitchen towel as a substitute for a napkin. With their usual independence and indifference to ceremony, troops of curious citizens stalked through the car to stare at my husband. We went on eating calmly, unconscious that they thought the picture hardly in keeping with their preconceived ideas of a commanding officer. When we thanked Mary for our feast, her face beamed and shone with a combination of joy at our delight and heat from the stove. When she lifted up our frugal board and set us free, we had a long stroll, talking over other birthdays and those yet to come, until the train was ready to start.

CHAPTER II.
A BLIZZARD.

After so many days in the car, we were glad to stop on an open plain about a mile from the town of Yankton, where the road ended.

The three chief considerations for a camp are wood, water, and good ground. The latter we had, but we were at some distance from the water, and neither trees nor brushwood were in sight.

The long trains were unloaded of their freight, and the plains about us seemed to swarm with men and horses. I was helped down from the Pullman car, where inlaid woods, mirrors, and plush surrounded us, to the ground, perfectly bare of every earthly comfort. The other ladies of the regiment went on to the hotel in the town. The general suggested that I should go with them, but I had been in camp so many summers it was not a formidable matter for me to remain, and fortunately for what followed I did so. The household belongings were gathered together. A family of little new puppies, some half-grown dogs, the cages of mocking-birds and canaries, were all corralled safely in a little stockade made of chests and trunks, and we set ourselves about making a temporary home. The general and a number of soldiers, composing the head-quarters detail, were obliged to go at once to lay out the main camp and assign the companies to their places. Later on, when the most important work was done, our tents were to be pitched. While I sat on a chest waiting, the air grew suddenly chilly, the bright sun of the morning disappeared, and the rain began to fall. Had we been accustomed to the climate we would have known that these changes were the precursors of a snow-storm.

When we left Memphis, not a fortnight before, we wore muslin gowns and were then uncomfortably warm; it seemed impossible that even so far north there could be a returned winter in the middle of April. We were yet to realize what had been told us of the climate—that there were “eight months of winter and four of very late in the fall.” On the bluffs beyond us was a signal-station, but they sent us no warning. Many years of campaigning in the Indian Territory, Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska, give one an idea of what the weather can do; but each new country has its peculiarities, and it seemed we had reached one where all the others were outdone. As the afternoon of that first day advanced the wind blew colder, and I found myself eying with envy a little half-finished cabin without an enclosure, standing by itself. Years of encountering the winds of Kansas, when our tents were torn and blown down so often, had taught me to appreciate any kind of a house, even though it were built upon the sand as this one was. A dug-out, which the tornado swept over, but could not harm, was even more of a treasure. The change of climate from the extreme south to the far north had made a number of the men ill, and even the superb health of the general had suffered. He continued to superintend the camp, however, though I begged him from time to time as I saw him to give up. I felt sure he needed a shelter and some comfort at once, so I took courage to plan for myself. Before this I had always waited, as the general preferred to prepare everything for me. After he had consented that we should try for the little house, some of the kind-hearted soldiers found the owner in a distant cabin, and he rented it to us for a few days. The place was equal to a palace to me. There was no plastering, and the house seemed hardly weatherproof. It had a floor, however, and an upper story divided off by beams; over these Mary and I stretched blankets and shawls and so made two rooms. It did not take long to settle our few things, and when wood and water were brought from a distance we were quite ready for house-keeping, except that we lacked a stove and some supplies. Mary walked into the town to hire or buy a small cooking-stove, but she could not induce the merchant to bring it out that night. She was thoughtful enough to take along a basket and brought with her a little marketing. Before she had come within sight of our cabin on her return, the snow was falling so fast it was with difficulty that she found her way.

Meanwhile the general had returned completely exhausted and very ill. Without his knowledge I sent for the surgeon, who, like all of his profession in the army, came promptly. He gave me some powerful medicine to administer every hour, and forbade the general to leave his bed. It was growing dark, and we were in the midst of a Dakota blizzard. The snow was so fine that it penetrated the smallest cracks, and soon we found white lines appearing all around us, where the roof joined the walls, on the windows and under the doors. Outside the air was so thick with the whirling, tiny particles that it was almost impossible to see one’s hand held out before one. The snow was fluffy and thick, like wool, and fell so rapidly, and seemingly from all directions, that it gave me a feeling of suffocation as I stood outside. Mary was not easily discouraged, and piling a few light fagots outside the door, she tried to light a fire. The wind and the muffling snow put out every little blaze that started, however, and so, giving it up, she went into the house and found the luncheon-basket we had brought from the car, in which remained some sandwiches, and these composed our supper.

The night had almost settled down upon us when the adjutant came for orders. Knowing the scarcity of fuel and the danger to the horses from exposure to the rigor of such weather after their removal from a warm climate, the general ordered the breaking of camp. All the soldiers were directed to take their horses and go into Yankton, and ask the citizens to give them shelter in their homes, cow-sheds, and stables. In a short time the camp was nearly deserted, only the laundresses, two or three officers, and a few dismounted soldiers remaining. The towns-people, true to the unvarying western hospitality, gave everything they could to the use of the regiment; the officers found places in the hotels. The sounds of the hoofs of the hurrying horses flying by our cabin on their way to the town had hardly died out before the black night closed in and left us alone on that wide, deserted plain. The servants, Mary and Ham, did what they could to make the room below-stairs comfortable by stopping the cracks and barricading the frail door. The thirty-six hours of our imprisonment there seems now a frightful nightmare. The wind grew higher and higher, and shrieked about the little house dismally. It was built without a foundation, and was so rickety it seemed as it rocked in a great gust of wind that it surely would be unroofed or overturned. The general was too ill for me to venture to find my usual comfort from his re-assuring voice. I dressed in my heaviest gown and jacket, and remained under the blankets as much as I could to keep warm. Occasionally I crept out to shake off the snow from the counterpane, for it sifted in between the roof and clapboards very rapidly. I hardly dared take the little phial in my benumbed fingers to drop the precious medicine for fear it would fall. I realized, as the night advanced, that we were as isolated from the town, and even the camp, not a mile distant, as if we had been on an island in the river. The doctor had intended to return to us, but his serious face and impressive injunctions made me certain that he considered the life of the general dependent on the medicine being regularly given.

During the night I was startled by hearing a dull sound, as of something falling heavily. Flying down the stairs I found the servants prying open the frozen and snow-packed door, to admit a half dozen soldiers who, becoming bewildered by the snow, had been saved by the faint light we had placed in the window. After that several came, and two were badly frozen. We were in despair of finding any way of warming them, as there was no bedding, and, of course, no fire, until I remembered the carpets which were sewed up in bundles and heaped in one corner, where the boxes were, and which we were not to use until the garrison was reached. Spreading them out, we had enough to roll up each wanderer as he came. The frozen men were in so exhausted a condition that they required immediate attention. Their sufferings were intense, and I could not forgive myself for not having something with which to revive them. The general never tasted liquor, and we were both so well always we did not even keep it for use in case of sickness.

I saw symptoms of that deadly stupor which is the sure precursor of freezing, when I fortunately remembered a bottle of alcohol which had been brought for the spirit-lamps. Mary objected to using the only means by which we could make coffee for ourselves, but the groans and exhausted and haggard faces of the men won her over, and we saw them revive under the influence of the fiery liquid. Poor fellows! They afterwards lost their feet, and some of their fingers had also to be amputated. The first soldier who had reached us unharmed, except from exhaustion, explained that they had all attempted to find their way to town, and the storm had completely overcome them. Fortunately one had clung to a bag of hard-tack, which was all they had had to eat. At last the day came, but so darkened by the snow it seemed rather a twilight. The drifts were on three sides of us like a wall. The long hours dragged themselves away, leaving the general too weak to rise, and in great need of hot, nourishing food. I grew more and more terrified at our utterly desolate condition and his continued illness, though fortunately he did not suffer. He was too ill, and I too anxious, to eat the fragments that remained in the luncheon-basket. The snow continued to come down in great swirling sheets, while the wind shook the loose window-casings and sometimes broke in the door. When night came again and the cold increased, I believed that our hours were numbered. I missed the voice of the courageous Mary, for she had sunk down in a corner exhausted for want of sleep, while Ham had been completely demoralized from the first. Occasionally I melted a little place on the frozen window-pane, and saw that the drifts were almost level with the upper windows on either side, but that the wind had swept a clear space before the door. During the night the sound of the tramping of many feet rose above the roar of the storm. A great drove of mules rushed up to the sheltered side of the house. Their brays had a sound of terror as they pushed, kicked, and crowded themselves against our little cabin. For a time they huddled together, hoping for warmth, and then despairing, they made a mad rush away, and were soon lost in the white wall of snow beyond. All night long the neigh of a distressed horse, almost human in its appeal, came to us at intervals. The door was pried open once, thinking it might be some suffering fellow-creature in distress. The strange, wild eyes of the horse peering in for help, haunted me long afterwards. Occasionally a lost dog lifted up a howl of distress under our window, but before the door could be opened to admit him he had disappeared in the darkness. When the night was nearly spent I sprang again to the window with a new horror, for no one, until he hears it for himself, can realize what varied sounds animals make in the excitement of peril. A drove of hogs, squealing and grunting, were pushing against the house, and the door which had withstood so much had to be held to keep it from being broken in.

It was almost unbearable to hear the groans of the soldiers over their swollen and painful feet, and know that we could do nothing to ease them. To be in the midst of such suffering, and yet have no way of ameliorating it; to have shelter, and yet to be surrounded by dumb beasts appealing to us for help, was simply terrible. Every minute seemed a day; every hour a year. When daylight came I dropped into an exhausted slumber, and was awakened by Mary standing over our bed with a tray of hot breakfast. I asked if help had come, and finding it had not, of course, I could not understand the smoking food. She told me that feeling the necessity of the general’s eating, it had come to her in the night-watches that she would cut up the large candles she had pilfered from the cars, and try if she could cook over the many short pieces placed close together, so as to make a large flame. The result was hot coffee and some bits of the steak she had brought from town, fried with a few slices of potatoes. She could not resist telling me how much better she could have done had I not given away the alcohol to the frozen men!

The breakfast revived the general so much that he began to make light of danger in order to quiet me. The snow had ceased to fall, but for all that it still seemed that we were castaways and forgotten, hidden under the drifts that nearly surrounded us. Help was really near at hand, however, at even this darkest hour. A knock at the door, and the cheery voices of men came up to our ears. Some citizens of Yankton had at last found their way to our relief, and the officers, who neither knew the way nor how to travel over such a country, had gladly followed. They told us that they had made several attempts to get out to us, but the snow was so soft and light that they could make no headway. They floundered and sank down almost out of sight, even in the streets of the town. Of course no horse could travel, but they told me of their intense anxiety, and said that fearing I might be in need of immediate help they had dragged a cutter over the drifts, which now had a crust of ice formed from the sleet and the moisture of the damp night air. Of course I declined to go without the general, but I was more touched than I could express by their thought of me. I made some excuse to go up-stairs, where, with my head buried in the shawl partition, I tried to smother the sobs that had been suppressed during the terrors of our desolation. Here the general found me, and though comforting me by tender words, he still reminded me that he would not like any one to know that I had lost my pluck when all the danger I had passed through was really ended.

The officers made their way over to camp, for they were anxious and uncertain as to what might have happened to the few persons remaining there. I had been extremely troubled, for each of the soldiers for whom we had been caring had, with a trooper’s usual love of the sensational, told us of frozen men and of the birth of babies to the laundresses. These stories had reached town through stragglers, until we imagined from the exaggeration that enough newly-born children might be found to start a small orphan asylum. The officers soon returned with the story reduced to one little stranger who had come safely into this world in the stormy night, sheltered by a tent only. No men were frozen, fortunately, though all had suffered. The soldier detailed to take care of the general’s horses found his way back with them, and in his solemn voice told us that in spite of every effort, sharing his blankets and holding the little things through the storm, the thorough-bred puppies had frozen one by one. There was one little box-stove in camp which the officers brought back, accompanied by its owner, an old and somewhat infirm officer.

In the midst of all this excitement, and the reaction from the danger, I could not suppress my sense of the ludicrous when I saw the daintiest and most exquisite officer of “ours,” whom last I remembered careering on his perfectly equipped and prancing steed before the admiring eyes of the Memphis belles, now wound up with scarfs and impromptu leggings of flannel; his hat tied down with a woollen comforter; buffalo gloves on his hands; and clasping a stove-pipe, necessary for the precious stove.

Some of the officers had brought out parcels containing food, while our brother, Colonel Tom Custer, had struggled with a large basket of supplies. In a short time another officer appeared at our door with a face full of anxiety about our welfare. He did not tell us what we afterwards learned from others, that, fearing the citizens would give up going to us, and knowing that he could not find the way alone over a country from which the snow had obliterated every landmark, he had started to go the whole distance on the railroad. Coming to a long bridge he found the track so covered with ice that it was a dangerous footing; the wind blew the sleet and snow in his face, almost blinding him, but nothing daunted, he crawled over on his hands and knees, and continuing to use the track as his guide, stopped when he thought he might be opposite our cabin, and ploughed his way with difficulty through the drifts.

When the officers had returned to town, we made a fire in the little stove which had been put up-stairs, as the pipe was so short. We ensconced our visitor, to whom the stove belonged, near by. He was a capital fireman; we divided our bedding with him, and put it on the floor, as close as possible to the fire. The shawl and blanket partition separated our rooms, but did not seem to deaden sound, and at night I only lost consciousness of the audible sleeping of our guest after I had dropped the point of a finger in my ear. He was the one among us who, being the oldest of our circle, and having had a varied experience, was an authority on many subjects. He had peculiar and extreme ideas on some questions. We listened out of respect, but we all drew the line at following some of his advice, and over one topic there was general revolt. He disbelieved entirely in the external or internal use of water, and living as we did in countries where the rivers were flowing mud, and the smaller streams dried up under the blazing sun, his would have been a convenient system, to say the least. Unfortunately, our prejudices in favor of cleanliness increased with the scarcity of water. Bathing became one of the luxuries as well as one of the absolute necessities of life. From being compelled to do with very little water, we had learned almost to take a bath in a thimble, and to this day I find myself pouring the water out of a pitcher in a most gingerly manner, so strong is the power of habit—even now with the generous rush of the unstinted Croton at my disposal. The theory of our venerable friend on the danger of bathing was fortified with many an earnest argument, and the advantages of his improved system of dry rubbing set out elaborately in his best rhetoric. Nevertheless, taking a bath with the palm of the hand was combated to the last by his hearers. When I had heard him arguing previously I had rather believed it to be the vagary of the hour. I had proof to the contrary the next morning after the storm, for I was awakened by a noise of vigorous friction and violent breathing, as of some one laboring diligently. I suddenly remembered the doctrine of our guest, and realized that he was putting theory into practice. As softly as I awakened my husband, and tried to whisper to him, he was on nettles instantly, hearing the quiver of laughter in my voice. He feared I might be heard, and that the feelings of the man for whom he had such regard might be wounded. He promptly requested me to smother my laughter in the blankets, and there I shook with merriment, perhaps even greater because of the relief I experienced in finding something to counteract the gloom of the preceding hours. And if I owned to telling afterwards that the old officer’s theory and practice were one, it could not be called a great breach of hospitality, for he gloried in what he called advanced ideas, and strove to wear the martyr’s crown that all pioneers in new and extreme beliefs crowd on their heads.

Our friend remained with us until the camp was inhabitable and the regular order of military duties was resumed. Paths and roads were made through the snow, and it was a great relief to be again in the scenes of busy life. We did not soon forget our introduction to Dakota. After that we understood why the frontiersman builds his stable near the house; we also comprehended then when they told us that they did not dare to cross in a blizzard from the house to the stable-door without keeping hold of a rope tied fast to the latch as a guide for their safe return when the stock was fed. Afterwards, when even our cool-headed soldiers lost their way and wandered aimlessly near their quarters, and when found were dazed in speech and look, the remembrance of that first storm, with the density of the down-coming snow, was a solution to us of their bewilderment.

CHAPTER III.
WESTERN HOSPITALITY.

The citizens of Yankton, endeavoring to make up for the inhospitable reception the weather had given us, vied with one another in trying to make the regiment welcome. The hotel was filled with the families of the officers, and after the duties of the day were over in camp, the married men went into town. We were called upon, asked to dine, and finally tendered a ball. It was given in the public hall of the town, which, being decorated with flags and ornamented with all the military paraphernalia that could be used effectively, was really very attractive. We had left gas far behind us, and we had not the mellow, becoming light of wax-candles, but those Western people were generous about lamps, as they are about everything else, and the hall was very bright.

The ladies had many trials in endeavoring to make themselves presentable. We burrowed in the depths of trunks for those bits of finery that we had supposed would not be needed again for years. We knew the officers would do us credit. Through all the sudden changes of fashion, which leave an army lady when she goes into the territories quite an antediluvian in toilet after a few months, the officer can be entirely serene. He can be conscious that he looks his best in a perfectly fitting uniform, and that he is never out of date.

The general and I went into the hotel and took a room for the night of the ball. Such good-humor, confusion, and jolly preparations as we had, for the young officers came to borrow the corner of our glass to put on the finishing touches, carrying their neckties, studs, sleeve-buttons, and gloves in their hands. The aigret had been taken from the helmet and placed across their broad chests, brightening still more their shining new uniforms. I remember with what pride the “plebs” called our attention to the double row of buttons which the change in the uniform now gave to all, without regard to rank. The lieutenants had heretofore only been allowed one row of buttons, and they declared that an Apollo even could not do justice to his figure with a coat fastened in so monotonous and straight up-and-down a manner.

Yankton, like all new towns, was chiefly settled with newly-married people, who ornamented their bits of front yards with shining new perambulators. The mothers had little afternoon parades, proud enough to trundle their own babies. If any one’s father ever came from the States to a Western town, we all felt at liberty to welcome his gray hairs. There were but few young girls, but that night must have been a memorable one for them. All the town, and even the country people, came to the ball. The mayor and common council received us, and the governor opened the festivities. We crossed to the hotel to our supper. We were asked to sit down to the table, and the abundance of substantials proved that our hosts did not expect us to nibble. The general was, of course, taken possession of by the city fathers and mothers. Finding among them a woman he knew I would appreciate, he placed me beside her at supper. I had but little time to eat, for she was not only clever and brave, but very interesting in her description of the dangers and hardships she had endured during the ten years of her pioneering. The railroad had been completed but a short time, and before that the life was wild enough. She sat quietly among these people in her simple stuff gown, honored and looked up to. Though not even elderly, she was still almost the oldest citizen and an authority in the history of the country. All classes and conditions came to the ball, for Yankton was not yet large enough to be divided into cliques; besides, the rough and hazardous life these people had shared endeared them to one another.

The days after this passed very rapidly. The officers were already getting the command into condition to begin the long march of five hundred miles that lay before us. Before we left, the general, desiring to return some of the civilities of the citizens, gave the governor and his staff a review. The wide plain on which our camp was located was admirably adapted to the display of troops. My heart swelled with pride to see our grand regiment all together once more and in such fine condition. When the review was closing, and that part came where the officers leave their companies and, joining, ride abreast to salute the commanding officer, the general could hardly maintain the stereotyped, motionless quiet of the soldier—the approach of this fine body of men made him so proud of his command.

All were well mounted; the two years’ station in the South had given them rare opportunities to purchase horses. The general, being considered an excellent judge, had, at the request of the officers, bought several from the stables of his Kentucky friends. He told me that if a colt failed a quarter of a second in making certain time expected, the owner was disappointed and willing to sell him at a merely nominal sum. So it came about that even the lieutenants, with their meagre pay, owned horses whose pedigree was unending. There were three officers belonging to each of the twelve companies; some were detailed on duty elsewhere, but those remaining, with the adjutant, surgeon, quartermaster, and commissary, made a long line of brilliantly caparisoned and magnificently formed men mounted on blood-horses. No wonder that the moment they saluted the general, he jumped from the saddle to congratulate them, and show them his pride in their soldierly appearance.

The governor and his staff were not chary in their expressions of admiration. It was a great event in the lives of the citizens, and the whole town was present. Every sort of vehicle used on the frontier came out, filled to overflowing, and many persons walked. The music of the band, the sun lighting up the polished steel of the arms and equipments, the hundreds of spirited horses going through the variety of evolutions which belong to a mounted regiment, made a memorable scene for these isolated people. Besides, they felt the sensation of possession when they knew that these troops had come to open the country and protect those more adventurous spirits who were already finding that a place into which the railroad ran was too far East for them.

One day we were all invited to take luncheon on board the steamer that had been chartered to take the regimental property up the river to Bismarck. The owner of the boat was very hospitable, and champagne flowed freely as he proposed old-fashioned toasts. The officers and ladies of the regiment received with pleasure all this politeness, and since these occasions were rare in the lives of those of us who lived always on the outskirts of civilization, we were reluctant to go home. My horse had been sent away by some mistake, and the general accepted the offer of the host to drive me out to camp, he riding for a time beside the carriage, and then, with his usual restlessness, giving rein to his horse for a brisk gallop. It was not long before I discovered that the uncertain swaying of the vehicle from side to side, and the hazardous manner in which we skirted the deep gullies, was due to the fact that our friend was overcome with hospitality.

Trying to talk intelligently, and to appear not to notice the vagaries of the driver, and at the same time to control my wandering eyes as they espied from afar a dangerous bit of road, I spent a very uncomfortable hour. Fortunately the “dear Polly” was most demure in harness, and possibly having been left before that to find her own way under similar circumstances, she did not attempt to leap with the carriage over ditches, as her gay owner invited her to do. When we came up within shouting distance of the general, I cried out, in what I meant to seem like playful menace; but he had taken in the situation, and seeing that Polly was to be trusted, he mischievously laughed back at me and flew over the country. Finally we neared our little cabin, and my last fear came upon me. Mary had spread the clothes-line far and wide; it was at the rear of the house, but my escort saw no door, and Polly soon wound us hopelessly up in the line and two weeks’ washing, while she quietly tried to kick her way through the packing-boxes and wood-piles! Mary and Ham extricated me, and started the old nag on the road homeward, and I waved a relieved good-bye to the retreating carriage.

Only such impossible wives as one reads of in Sunday-school books would have lost the opportunity for a few wrathful words. I was not dangerous, though, and the peals of laughter from my husband, as he described my wild eyes peering out from the side of the carriage, soon put me into a good-humor. Next day I was called to the steps, and found that Polly’s owner had discovered that we had a door. He said an off-hand “How d’ye?” and presented a peace-offering, adding, “My wife tells me that I was hardly in a condition to deliver a temperance lecture yesterday. As what she says is always true, I bring my apologies.” Ham carried in the hamper, and though I urged our guest to remain, he did not seem quite at ease and drove away.

While we were at Yankton, something happened that filled us with wonder. The Indians from the reservation near brought in reports that came through other tribes of the Modoc disasters. It was a marvel to the general to find that at that distance north news could come to us through Indian runners in advance of that we received by the telegraph.

CHAPTER IV.
CAVALRY ON THE MARCH.

When the day came for us to begin our march, the sun shone and the towns-people wished us good-luck with their good-bye.

The length of each day’s march varied according to the streams on which we relied for water, or the arrival of the boat. The steamer that carried the forage for the horses and the supplies for the command was tied up to the river-bank every night, as near to us as was possible. The laundresses and ladies of the regiment were on board, except the general’s sister, Margaret, who made her first march with her husband, riding all the way on horseback. As usual, I rode beside the general. Our first few days were pleasant, and we began at once to enjoy the plover. The land was so covered with them that the hunters shot them with all sorts of arms. We counted eighty birds in the gunny-sack that three of the soldiers brought in. Fortunately there were several shot-guns in the possession of our family, and the little things, therefore, were not torn to pieces, but could be broiled over the coals of the camp-fire. They were so plump that their legs were like tiny points coming from beneath the rounded outline that swept the grass as they walked. No butter was needed in cooking them, for they were very fat. Some of the officers had not left behind them all of their epicurean tastes, and preferred to have the birds cooked when they were decidedly “gamy.” In this way they secured the privilege of taking their odoriferous luncheon quite apart from the others. The general had invited two officers besides his brother Tom, and his brother-in-law, Mr. Calhoun, to mess with him. We had a tableful, and very merry we were, even in the early morning. To joke before daylight seems impossible, but even at breakfast peals of laughter went up from the dining-tent.

One of the officers was envied, and we declared he got more to eat than the rest, because he insisted upon “carving the hash;” while to cut meat for all our hungry circle, as the general did at the other end of the table, took many precious moments. One of our number called us the “Great Grab Mess,” and some one slyly printed the words in large black letters on the canvas that covered the luncheon-hamper, which was usually strapped at the back of our travelling-carriage. How gladly we gathered about that hamper when the command halted at noon! How good the plover and sandwiches tasted, while we quenched our thirst with cold coffee or tea! Since we were named as we were, we all dared to reach over and help ourselves, and the one most agile and with the longest arms was the best fed.

No great ceremony is to be expected when one rises before four, and takes a hurried breakfast by the light of a tallow-candle; the soldiers waiting outside to take down the tent, the servants hastily and suggestively rattling the kettles and gridiron as they packed them, made it an irresistible temptation for one hungry to “grab.”

We had a very satisfactory little cook-stove. It began its career with legs, but the wind used to lift it up from the ground with such violence it was finally dismembered, and afterwards placed flat on the ground. Being of sheet-iron it cooled quickly, was very light, and could be put in the wagon in a few moments after the morning meal was cooked. When we came out from breakfast the wagon stood near, partly packed, and bristling with kitchen utensils; buckets and baskets tied outside the cover, axe and spade lashed to the side, while the little stove looked out from the end. The mess-chest stood open on the ground to receive the dishes we had used. At a given signal the dining-tent went down with all those along the line, and they were stowed away in the wagons in an incredibly short time. The wagon-train then drew out and formed in order at the rear of the column.

At the bugle-call, “boots and saddles,” each soldier mounted and took his place in line, all riding two abreast. First came the general and his staff, with whom sister Margaret and I were permitted to ride; the private orderlies and head-quarters detail rode in our rear; and then came the companies according to the places assigned them for the day; finally the wagon-train, with the rear-guard. We made a long drawn-out cavalcade that stretched over a great distance. When we reached some high bluff, we never tired of watching the command advancing, with the long line of supply wagons, with their white covers, winding around bends in the road and climbing over the hills. Every day the breaking of camp went more smoothly and quickly, until, as the days advanced, the general used to call me to his side to notice by his watch how few moments it took after the tents were ordered down to set the whole machinery for the march in motion; and I remember the regiment grew so skilful in preparation that in one campaign the hour for starting never varied five minutes during the whole summer.

The column was always halted once during the day’s march to water the horses, then the luncheons were brought forth. They varied decidedly; sometimes an officer took from his pocket a hard biscuit wrapped in his handkerchief; the faithful orderly of another took his chief’s sandwiches from his own haversack and brought them to him, wherever he was. Often a provident officer, as he seated himself to his little “spread” on the grass, was instantly surrounded by interested visitors, who, heedless ever of any future, believed that the world owed them a living and they were resolved to have it.

When the stream was narrow, and the hundreds of horses had to be ranged along its banks to be watered, there was time for a nap. I soon acquired the general’s habit of sleeping readily. He would throw himself down anywhere and fall asleep instantly, even with the sun beating on his head. It only takes a little training to learn to sleep without a pillow on uneven ground and without shade. I learned, the moment I was helped out of the saddle, to drop upon the grass and lose myself in a twinkling. No one knows what a privilege it is to be stretched out after being cramped over the horn of a lady’s saddle for hours, until she has experienced it. I think I never got quite over wishing for the shade of a tree; but there was often a little strip of shadow on one side of the travelling wagon, which was always near us on the journey. I was not above selfishly appropriating the space under the wagon, if it had not been taken by somebody else. Even then I had to dislodge a whole collection of dogs, who soon find the best places for their comfort.

We had a citizen-guide with us, who, having been long in the country, knew the streams, and the general and I, following his instructions, often rode in advance as we neared the night’s camp. It was always a mild excitement and new pleasure to select camp. The men who carried the guidons for each company were sent for, and places assigned them. The general delighted to unsaddle his favorite horse, Dandy, and turn him loose, for his attachment was so strong he never grazed far from us. He was not even tethered, and after giving himself the luxury of a roll in the grass, he ate his dinner of oats, and browsed about the tent, as tame as a kitten. He whinnied when my husband patted his sleek neck, and looked jealously at the dogs when they all followed us into the tent afterwards.

After tramping down the grass, to prevent the fire from spreading, my husband would carry dry sticks and underbrush, and place them against a fallen tree. That made an admirable back-log, and in a little while we had a glorious fire, the general having a peculiar gift of starting a flame on the wildest day. The next thing was to throw himself down on the sod, cover his eyes with his white felt hat, and be sound asleep in no time. No matter if the sun beat down in a perfect blaze, it never disturbed him. The dogs came at once to lie beside him. I have seen them stretched at his back and curled around his head, while the nose and paws of one rested on his breast. And yet he was quite unconscious of their crowding. They growled and scrambled for the best place, but he slept placidly through it all.

When the command arrived, the guidons pointed out the location for each company; the horses were unsaddled and picketed out; the wagons unloaded and the tents pitched. The hewing of wood and the hauling of water came next, and after the cook-fires were lighted, the air was full of savory odors of the soldiers’ dinner. Sometimes the ground admitted of pitching the tents of the whole regiment in two long lines facing each other; the wagons were drawn up at either end, and also at the rear of the two rows of tents; they were placed diagonally, one end overlapping the other, so as to form a barricade against the attack of Indians. Down the centre of the company street large ropes were stretched, to which the horses were tied at night; our tents were usually a little apart from the rest, at one end of the company street, and it never grew to be an old story to watch the camp before us. After I had changed my riding-habit for my one other gown, I came out to join the general under the tent-fly, where he lay alternately watching the scene and reading one of the well-thumbed books that he was never without. I always had sewing—either a bit of needle-work that was destined to make our garrison quarters more attractive, or more often some necessary stitches to take in our hard-worn clothes. As we sat there it would have been difficult for a stranger seeing us to believe that it was merely the home of a day.

Our camps along the river were much alike, and each day when we entered the tent our few things were placed exactly as they were the day before. The only articles of furniture we had with us were two folding-chairs, a bed, a wash-bowl, with bucket and tin dipper, and a little mirror. This last, fastened to the tent-pole, swayed to and fro with the never-ceasing wind, and made it a superfluous luxury, for we learned to dress without it. The camp-chairs were a great comfort: they were made by a soldier out of oak, with leather back, seat and arms, the latter so arranged with straps and buckles that one could recline or sit upright at will. I once made a long march and only took a camp-stool for a seat; I knew therefore what an untold blessing it was to have a chair in which to lean, after having been sitting in the saddle for hours.

We had tried many inventions for cot-beds that folded, but nothing stood the wear and tear of travel like the simple contrivance of two carpenter’s horses placed at the right distance apart, with three boards laid upon them. Such a bed was most easily transported, for the supports could be tied to the outside of the wagon, while the boards slipped inside before the rest of the camp equipage was packed.

An ineffaceable picture remains with me even now of those lovely camps, as we dreamily watched them by the fading light of the afternoon. The general and I used to think there was no bit of color equal to the delicate blue line of smoke which rose from the camp-fire, where the soldiers’ suppers were being cooked. The effect of light and shade, and the varying tints of that perfect sky, were a great delight to him. The mellow air brought us sounds that had become dear by long and happy association—the low notes of the bugle in the hands of the musician practising the calls; the click of the currycomb as the soldiers groomed their horses; the whistle or song of a happy trooper. And even the irrepressible accordeon at that distance made a melody. It used to amuse us to find with what persistent ingenuity the soldiers smuggled that melancholy instrument. No matter how limited the transportation, after a few days’ march it was brought out from a roll of blankets, or the teamster who had been bribed to keep it under the seat, produced the prized possession. The bay of the hounds was always music to the general. The bray of the mules could not be included under that head but it was one of those “sounds from home” to which we had become attached. Mingling with the melodies of the negro servants, as they swung the blacking-brushes at the rear of the tents, were the buoyant voices of the officers lying under the tent-flies, smoking the consoling pipe.

The twilight almost always found many of us gathered together, some idling on the grass in front of the camp-fire, or lounging on the buffalo robes. The one with the best voice sang, while all joined in the chorus.

We all had much patience in listening to what must necessarily be “twice-told tales,” for it would have taken the author of “The Arabian Nights” to supply fresh anecdotes for people who had been so many years together. These stories usually varied somewhat from time to time, and the more Munchausen-like they became the more attentive was the audience.

The territories are settled by people who live an intense, exaggerated sort of existence, and nothing tame attracts them. In order to compel a listener, I myself fell into the habit of adding a cipher or two to stories that had been first told in the States with moderate numbers. If the family overheard me, their unquenchable spirit of mischief invariably put a quietus on my eloquence. In fact I was soon cured of temptation to amplify, by the repeated asides of my deriding family, “Oh, I say, old lady, won’t you come down a hundred or two?” Sometimes, when we were all gathered together at evening, we improved the privilege which belongs to long-established friendships of keeping silent. The men yielded to the soporific influence of tobacco, in quiet content, knowing that nothing was expected of them if they chose not to talk. My husband and I sometimes strolled through the camp at twilight, and even went among the citizen teamsters that are employed for the march, when they were preparing their evening meal.

These teamsters mess together on the march as the officers do, with rarely more than four or five in the circle. One of the number buys the supplies, takes charge of the rations, and keeps the accounts. The sum of expenses is divided at the end of the month, and each pays his portion. They take turns in doing the cooking, which, being necessarily simple, each can bear a share of the labor. Sometimes we found a more ambitious member of the mess endeavoring to rise superior to the tiresome hard-tack; he had bared his brawny arms and was mixing biscuit on the tail-board of the wagon, let down for the purpose. He whistled away as he moulded the dough with his horny hands, and it would have seemed that he had a Delmonico supper to anticipate.

We had not left Yankton far behind us before we were surprised to see one of its most hospitable citizens drive up; he acknowledged that he had missed us, and described the tameness of life after the departure of the cavalry as something quite past endurance. We were so stupid as not to discover, until after he had said the second good-bye, that he really wanted to join us on the march; still, had he kept on, I am sure his endurance would have been tested, for while I do not remember ever to have been discouraged before in all our campaigning, I was so during the storm that followed. The weather suddenly changed, and we began our march with a dull, gray morning and stinging cold. The general wound me up in all the outside wraps I had until I was a shapeless mass of fur and wool as I sat in the saddle. We could talk but little to each other, for the wind cut our faces and stiffened the flesh until it ached. My hands became too numb to hold my horse, so I gave him his own way. As we rode along like automatons, I was keeping my spirits up with the thought of the camp we would make in the underbrush of a sheltered valley by some stream, and the coming camp-fire rose brightly in my imagination. We went slowly as the usual time a cavalry command makes is barely four miles an hour. It was a discouraging spot where we finally halted; it was on a stream, but the ice was thick along the edges, and all we could see was the opposite bank, about thirty feet high, so frozen over that it looked like a wall of solid ice. It was difficult to pitch the tent, for the wind twisted and tore the canvas; the ground was already so frozen that it took a long time to drive in the iron pins by which the ropes holding the tents are secured. All the tying and pinning of the opening was of little avail, for the wind twisted off the tapes and flung the great brass pins I had brought on purpose for canvas far and wide.

No camp-fire would burn, of course, in such a gale, but I remembered thankfully the Sibley stove that we always carried. The saddler had cut a hole in the roof of the tent for the pipe, and fastened zinc around it to make it safe from fire. I shall never think about a Sibley stove without gratitude, nor cease to wonder how so simple an invention can be the means of such comfort. It is only a cone of sheet-iron, open at the top and bottom; the broader part rests on the ground, while the little pipe fits on the top. The wood is put through a door cut in the side; only billets can be used, for the aperture is of course small. It requires almost constant attention to keep the insatiable little thing filled, but it never occurs to one, where half a dozen are huddled together, to ask who shall be the fireman, and there is equal division of labor. The stove is so light that, in marching, the pipe is removed and a rope run through the openings, which enables it to be tied underneath the wagon, beside the bucket which is always suspended there to be used to water the horses.

The general was busy in the adjutant’s tent, so I sent for the sergeant, who was our factotum, and asked him to hunt up the Sibley stove. I felt disheartened when he told me it had been forgotten.[A] I could have gone to the next tent where a provident officer had put his up, but I felt in too disagreeable a humor to inflict myself on any one, and so crept into bed to keep warm. It was an unmistakable fit of sulks, and I was in the valley of humiliation next morning, for I knew well how difficult it is to have ladies on the march, and how many obstacles the general had surmounted to arrange for my coming. My part consisted in drilling myself to be as little trouble as I could. I had really learned, by many a self-inflicted lesson, never to be too cold or too hot, and rarely allowed a thought of hunger if we were where no supplies could be had. It was a long struggle, but I finally learned never to drink between meals, as it is always difficult to get water on a march. I can remember being even mortified at dropping my whip, for I wished to be so little trouble that every one would be unconscious of my presence, so far as being an inconvenience was concerned. The cold of Dakota overcame me on that one day, but it was the last time I succumbed to it.

[A] It was afterwards recovered.

CHAPTER V.
CAMPING AMONG THE SIOUX.

Our march took us through the grounds set apart by the Government for the use of the Sioux Indians at peace with our country. We had not made much progress before we began to see their graves. They do not bury their dead, but place them on boards lashed to the limbs of trees, or on high platforms raised from the ground by four poles perhaps twenty feet. The body is wound round and round with clothing or blankets, like a mummy, and inside the layers are placed fire-arms, tobacco, and jerked beef, to supply them on the imaginary journey to the happy hunting-grounds. In the early morning, when it was not quite light, as we filed by these solitary sepulchres, it was uncanny and weird, and the sun, when it came, was doubly welcome. Our first visitor from Agency Indians was Fool-dog, a Sioux chief. He was tall, commanding, and had really a fine face. When he was ready to go home he invited us to come to his village before we left on our next march. At twilight my husband and I walked over. The village was a collection of tepees of all sizes, the largest being what is called the Medicine Lodge, where the councils are held. It was formed of tanned buffalo-hides, sewed together with buckskin thongs, and stretched over a collection of thirty-six poles. These poles are of great value to the Indians, for in a sparsely timbered country like Dakota it is difficult to find suitable trees. It is necessary to go a great distance to procure the kind of sapling that is light and pliable and yet sufficiently strong for the purpose. The poles are lashed together at the tops and radiate in a circle below. The smoke was pouring out of the opening above, and the only entrance to the tepee was a round aperture near the ground, sufficiently large to allow a person to crawl in. Around the lodge were poles from which were suspended rags; in these were tied their medicines of roots and herbs, supposed to be a charm to keep off evil spirits. The sound of music came from within; I crept tremblingly in after the general, not entirely quieted by his keeping my hand in his, and whispering something to calm my fears as I sat on the buffalo robe beside him. In the first place, I knew how resolute the Indians were in never admitting one of their own women to council, and their curious eyes and forbidding expressions towards me did not add to my comfort. The dust, smoke, and noise in the fading light were not re-assuring. Fool-dog arose from the circle of what composed their nobility, and solemnly shook hands with the general; those next in rank followed his example. The pipe was then smoked, and the general had to take a whiff when it came his turn. Fortunately we escaped the speeches, for we had not brought an interpreter.

Coming out of the light into this semi-darkness, with the grotesque figures of the plebeians, as they danced around their chiefs and contorted their bodies to the sound of the Indian drum and minor notes of the singers, made it something unearthly in appearance; their painted faces, grunts and grins of serious mirth as they wheeled around the tepee, made me shiver. How relieved I felt when the final pipe was smoked and the good-bye said! The curious eyes of the squaws, who stood in the vicinity of the lodge, followed us, as they watched me clinging to the general’s arm while we disappeared, in the direction of camp, through the thickening gloom.

As we went farther north the twilights became longer, and I was greatly deceived by having so much daylight. Every morning, when the reveille sounded, in attempting to obey its summons I found myself actually mystified from excessive drowsiness, and I announced my resolve to go to bed at dark—as was often my custom on previous marches—when I was informed that we had marched into a land where daylight continues into the night hours. The general, who was always looking at the curious effects in the heavens, delighted in the clearness of the atmosphere and the myriads of stars that seemed to far outnumber all we had ever seen in other skies. All the strange phenomena of northern climes revealed themselves to us day by day. The sun and moon dogs, the lunar rainbows, and sometimes three perfect arcs of brilliant color formed directly above us in the heavens as we made our day’s march through spring showers. The storms came down in great belts of rain sometimes, and if the country were level enough we could look ahead on the plain and see where the storm was crossing. This enabled us to halt in time to escape a perfect sheet of pouring rain which fell like a wall of water directly before us. Once we found ourselves in the midst of it, and not knowing then the peculiarities of such storms, we took our drenching philosophically, and believed that it was like too many others that had kept us soaked to the skin for hours. Seeing the sun shining in advance on the plain, the general and I put spurs to our horses and rode out of the storm to perfectly dry ground. The sun came down on us so hotly that we were soon enveloped in a halo of steam from our drying clothes.

The history of one day’s march was that of many; they were varied by small misfortunes over which we amused ourselves, but which were very serious affairs to the melancholy Ham. He had cooked by fireplaces in Kentucky, but never having lived out-doors before, he gained his experience by hard trials. The little sheet-iron cooking-stove which we considered such a treasure, was placed in the kitchen-tent on stormy nights, and the bit of pipe, put through a hole in the canvas, had an elbow so that it could be turned according to the direction of the wind.

One day, after camp was re-established, the general saw the smoke pouring out of the opening of the kitchen-tent, and hurried to see what was the matter. It was one of those days when the Dakota winds, like those of Kansas, blow in all directions; poor Ham was barely visible in the dense smoke inside the tent. “Why don’t you turn the pipe?” the general called, above the tempest; and Ham shouted back, “Giniril, I did; see whar she’s p’intin’ now?” His master’s sides shook with laughter, for sure enough the pipe would have been right if there had been any uniformity in the course of the wind. The general was hungry, but he did not stop to complain; he found a place somewhat sheltered, and digging a hole in the ground, taught the discouraged darkey how to build a fire outside. At last we sat down to a burned, smoky meal, and had to go to bed hungry.

Another day, when there was a small tornado, we began to wonder why dinner was delayed; we looked out, to find the cook-tent blown flat to the ground. The general ran to the rescue, and found Ham interred, as the old-time child stories buried their heroes, “in a pot of grease.” He had been thrown among skillets and kettles, and the half-cooked dinner was scattered over him. The general helped him out, and was too much exhausted with laughter over the old fellow’s exasperated remarks about “such a low-down country,” to mind the delay of the dinner. Indeed, he soothed him by telling him to wait and begin again when the wind went down, as it usually does when the sun sets.

One day we caught sight of our American flag on the other side of the river, floating over a little group of buildings inside a stockade. When they told me that it was a military post, I could hardly believe it possible; it seemed that no spot could be more utterly desolate. Then I remembered having met an officer at Yankton who had told me that was his station. As I looked at his fine face and figure, I could not help thinking how thoroughly some woman would appreciate him. Thinking aloud, I said that I hoped he had “improved each shining hour” of his leave of absence, and was already engaged. He replied that I would see his post as we went up the river, and then might comprehend why he did not dare ask any woman to be his wife. I argued that if some girl grew fond of him, it would little matter to her where she went, if it were only by her husband’s side. I confess, however, that when I saw that lonely place, I thought that it would require extraordinary devotion to follow him there. It was an infantry station, and the soldiers’ barracks, officers’ quarters, and storehouses were huddled together inside a wall made of logs placed perpendicularly and about fifteen feet high. The sand was so deep about this spot that nothing could be made to grow. Constant gusts of wind over the unprotected plain kept little clouds of fine alkaline dust whirling in the air and filling the eyes and mouth; not a tree was near, as the Missouri—that most uncertain of rivers—kept constantly changing its channel, and the advancing water washed away great hollows in the banks. The post would then have to be moved farther back for safety. The soldiers would be obliged to take up the stockade, and bury the logs as deep as they could to keep them from blowing over. The frail buildings, “built upon the sand,” rocked and swayed in the wind.

Beside the forlorn situation of this garrison, no one could go outside to ride or hunt without peril. The warlike Indians considered that side of the river theirs, and roamed up and down it at will. They came incessantly to the small sliding panel in the gates of the stockade, and made demands, which, if not consented to, were followed by howls of rage and threatening gestures. All that the handful of men could do was to conciliate them as best they could. The company was not full, and possibly, all told, there were but fifty white men against hundreds of Indians. The only variety in their lives was the passing of an occasional steamer in the brief summer. Then settled down the pitiless winter, burying them in snow which never left the ground until late in the spring. The mail only reached them at irregular intervals. They were compelled to live almost entirely on commissary stores, for though living in the midst of game it was too hazardous to attempt to hunt. When we found that one regiment had been seven years on the river, and some of the officers had never taken leave of absence, it seems strange that any one stationed at such a post had not gone stark mad. It makes me proud of women when I recall the fact that the wife of an officer did live in that wretched little post afterwards, and did not complain. The cavalry, turning to look their last at that garrison, thanked the good-fortune that had placed them in a branch of the service where there was the active duty of campaigns to vary a life otherwise so monotonous.

The dogs had almost as hard a time to become accustomed to the vagaries of a Dakota climate as we did. We had to be their nurses and surgeons. In our large pack of hounds there were many that had marked individuality of character. Not many days could be passed in their company before we were noticing new peculiarities not previously observed. The general had a droll fashion, as we rode along, of putting words into their mouths when they got into trouble, fought among themselves, or tried to lord it over one another. One of them had been given us, and had been called by her former owner “Lucy Stone.” In vain did we try, out of respect for the life of the useful woman for whom she was named, to rechristen the dog. She would neither listen nor obey if called anything else. I can see her now, sitting deliberately down in the road directly in front of us, and holding up a paw full of cactus thorns. The general would say, “There sits Lucy Stone, and she is saying, ‘If you please, sir, since you chose to bring me into a land of bristling earth like this, will you please get down immediately and attend to my foot?’” Her howls and upturned eyes meant an appeal, certainly, and her master would leap to the ground, sit down in the road, and taking the old creature in his arms, begin the surgery. He carried one of those knives that had many adjuncts, and with the tweezers he worked tenderly and long to extract the tormenting cactus needles. Lucy was a complaining old dame, and when the general saw her sit down, like some fat old woman, he used to say that the old madam was telling him that she “would like to drive a bit, if you please.” So it often happened that my travelling-wagon was the hospital for an ill or foot-sore dog. The general had to stop very often to attend to the wounded paws, but experience taught the dogs to make their way very skilfully where the cactus grew. A dancing-master, tripping the steps of instruction, could not have moved more lightly than did they. If there were no one near to whom they could appeal in the human way those dumb things have, they learned to draw out the offending thorns with their teeth.

While we were all getting accustomed to the new climate, it was of no use to try to keep the dogs out of my tent. They stood around, and eyed me with such reproachful looks if I attempted to tie up the entrance to the tent and leave them out. If it were very cold when I returned from the dining-tent, I found dogs under and on the camp-bed, and so thickly scattered over the floor that I had to step carefully over them to avoid hurting feet or tails. If I secured a place in the bed I was fortunate. Sometimes, when it had rained, and all of them were wet, I rebelled. The steam from their shaggy coats was stifling; but the general begged so hard for them that I taught myself to endure the air at last. I never questioned the right of the half-grown puppies to everything. Our struggles to raise them, and to avoid the distemper which goes so much harder with blooded than with cur dogs, endeared them to us. When I let the little ones in, it was really comical to hear my husband’s arguments and cunningly-devised reasons why the older dogs should follow. A plea was put up for “the hound that had fits;” there was always another that “had been hurt in hunting;” and so on until the tent would hold no more. Fortunately, in pleasant weather, I was let off with only the ill or injured ones for perpetual companions. We were so surrounded with dogs when they were resting after the march, and they slept so soundly from fatigue, that it was difficult to walk about without stepping on them.

My favorite, a great cream-colored stag-hound, was named “Cardigan.” He never gave up trying to be my lap-dog. He was enormous, and yet seemingly unconscious of his size. He kept up a perpetual struggle and scramble on his hind-legs to get his whole body up on my lap. If I pieced myself out with a camp-stool to support him, he closed his eyes in a beatific state and sighed in content while I held him, until my foot went to sleep and I was cramped with his weight. One thing that made me so fond of him was that on one occasion, when he was put in the kennel after an absence, he was almost torn to pieces by the other dogs. He was a brave hound, but he was at fearful odds against so many. Great slices of flesh were torn from his sides, and gaping wounds made by the fang-like teeth showed through his shaggy coat. It was many months before they healed.

Though the stag-hound is gentle with human beings he is a terrible fighter. They stand on their hind-legs and, facing each other, claw and tear like demons. It was always necessary to watch them closely when a new dog, or one that they had not seen for some time, was put in their midst.

I will anticipate a moment and speak of the final fate of Cardigan. When I left Fort Lincoln I asked some one to look out for his welfare, and send him, as soon as possible, to a clergyman who had been my husband’s friend. My request was complied with, and afterwards, when the poor old dog died, his new master honored him by having his body set up by the taxidermist, and a place was given him in one of the public buildings in Minneapolis. I cannot help thinking that he was worthy of the tribute, not only because of the testimony thus given to the friendship of the people for his master, but because he was the bravest and most faithful of animals.

Most of the country passed over in our route belonged to the Indian Reservations, and the Government was endeavoring to teach the tribes settled there to cultivate the soil. They had hunted off most of the game; an occasional jack-rabbit, the plover, and a few wild ducks were all that were left. I must not forget the maddening curlew. It was not good eating, but it was always exciting to see one. There never was a more exasperating bird to shoot. Time and again a successful shot was prophesied, and I was called to be a witness, only to see finally the surprise of the general when the wily bird soared calmly away. I believe no person was able to bring one down during the entire trip.

As we approached an Indian village, the chiefs came out to receive us. There were many high-sounding words of welcome, translated by our guide, who, having lived among them many years, knew the different dialects. The Government had built some comfortable log-houses for them, in many of which I would have lived gladly. The Indians did not care for them, complaining that they had coughs if they occupied a house. A tepee was put up alongside, in which one or two families lived, while little low lodges, looking like the soldiers’ shelter-tents, were used for the young men of the circle to sleep in. The tools and stores given by the Government were packed away in the otherwise empty houses.

CHAPTER VI.
A VISIT TO THE VILLAGE OF “TWO BEARS.”

A Sioux chief, called Two Bears, had the most picturesque village that we saw. The lodges were placed in a circle, as this was judged the most defensive position; the ponies were herded inside the enclosure at night. This precaution was necessary, for the neighboring tribes swept down on them after dark and ran off the stock if they were not secured. As we dismounted, we saw an old man standing alone in the circle, apparently unconscious of everything, as he recounted some war tale in loud, monotonous tones. He had no listeners—all were intently watching the approaching regiment; still the venerable Sioux went on as persistently as if he were looking “upon a sea of upturned faces.” He was the “medicine-man,” or oracle, of the tribe, or possibly the “poet-laureate” of the village, for the guide told us he sang of the deeds of valor of his people far back in history.

Just outside of the village, the chiefs sat in a circle awaiting us. Two Bears arose to welcome the general, and asked him to go with him to his lodge. I was asked to go also and be presented to Miss Two Bears; for she was too royal in birth to be permitted outside, and it was not in keeping with the dignity of her rank to mingle with the others, the guide afterwards explained to us.

The honor of going alone into the tepee was one that I could have foregone, for my courage was much greater if I did my Indian sight-seeing surrounded by the regiment. The general, fearing their amour propre might be offended if I declined the invitation, whispered an encouraging word, and we dipped our heads and crept into the tepee. The chief was a dignified old man, wrapped in his blanket, without the usual addition of some portion of citizen’s dress which the Indians believe adds to their grandeur. His daughter also was in complete squaw’s costume; her feet were moccasined, her legs and ankles wound round with beaded leggings, and she had on the one buckskin garment which never varies in cut through all the tribes. A blanket drawn over her head was belted at her waist. To crown all this, however, she had an open parasol, brought to her, doubtless, as a present by some Indian returning from a council at Washington. She held it with dignity, as if it might be to her as much an insignia of state as the mace of the lord-mayor.

Fortunately they did not ask us to sit down and partake of jerked beef, or to smoke the never-ending pipe, so we soon got through our compliments and returned to the outer entrance of the village.

Here the tribe were assembled, and evidently attired in gala-dress in our honor. We were most interested in the village belle, and the placid manner in which she permitted us to walk around her, gazing and talking her good points over, showed that she expected homage. She sat on a scarlet blanket spread on the ground, and over her, stretched from poles, was another for an awning. She was loaded with ornaments, row after row of beads about her neck, broad armlets and anklets of brass, pinchbeck rings, and a soft buckskin dress and leggings, heavily embroidered. Her ears were pierced twice—on the side as well as in the lobe—and from these holes were suspended circles of gilt. Her bright eyes, the satin smoothness of her hair, and the clear brown of the skin made a pretty picture. There was no attempt to blend into the brown the bright patch of carmine on each cheek.

Only extreme youth and its ever attractive charms can make one forget the heavy square shape of Indian faces and their coarse features. It was surprising to see all the other squaws giving up the field to this one so completely. They crouched near, with a sort of “every-dog-must-have-its-day” look, and did not even dispute her sway by making coy eyes as we spoke to them.

There were but few young men. Their absence was always excused by the same reason—they were out hunting. We knew how little game there was, and surmised—what we afterwards found to be true—that they had joined the hostile tribes, and only came in to the distribution of supplies and presents in the fall. A few rods from the village a tripod of poles was set in the ground, and lashed to it the Indian’s shield, made of the hide of the buffalo where it is thickest about the neck. There were rude paintings and Indian hieroglyphics covering it. The shield is an heirloom with the Indian, and the one selected to hang out in this manner has always the greatest war record. One of their superstitions is that it keeps away enemies. These nomads had some idea of luxury, for I recollect seeing some of them reclining on a kind of rest made of a framework of pliable rods, over which was stretched buckskin. Afterwards I found how comfortable such contrivances were, for one was given me. The slope is so gradual that you half recline and can read with great ease.

When we had reached camp and were taking our afternoon siesta the same day, with the tent walls raised for air, we were roused by the sound of music. Looking off over the bluffs we saw a large body of Indians approaching on ponies, while squaws and children ran beside them. It was the prompt response of Two Bears to the general’s invitation to return his call. The warriors stopped near camp, and dismounting advanced towards us. The squaws unbridled and picketed the ponies, and made themselves comfortable by arranging impromptu shades of the bright blankets. They staked down two corners closely to the ground, and propped up the others with poles stuck in the sod.

When the Indians came up to us, the council was, as usual, begun. The pipe being smoked, Two Bears gave us a eulogy of himself. He then demanded, in behalf of the tribe, payment for the use of the ground on which we were encamped, and also for the grass consumed, though it was too short to get more than an occasional tuft. He ended, as they all do, with a request for food. The general in reply vaguely referred them to the Great Father in payment for the use of their land, but presented them with a beef in return for their hospitality. Only half satisfied, they stalked away one by one. We watched them at a distance kill and divide the beef. It surprised us to see how they despatched it, and that hardly a vestige of it was left.

Many of the Indians coming from reservations carried papers which they valued and carefully guarded. After burrowing under robe and shirt, something was produced wrapped in layers of soiled cotton cloth. It was a recommendation of them obtained from some officer or Indian agent. This was presented on entering, as their letter of introduction. Most of these papers read very much the same way. Giving the Indian’s name, it stated that he had been living on the reservation for a certain length of time, that he was friendly to the whites, etc.

One of our guests that day carried something a little different. He was called “Medicine Jo.” Lingering behind the rest, he presented his letter with perfect good faith and great pomposity. Some wag had composed it, and it read something like this:

“Medicine Jo says he is a good Indian, that you can trust him. If he is, he is the first I have ever seen, and in my opinion he, like all the rest, will bear watching.”

It was all the general could do to keep his face straight as he handed back to the unconscious owner this little libel on himself.

The interpreter kept constantly before us the fine post that we were approaching, and the last day before we reached there it was visible for a long distance. The atmosphere of Dakota was so deceptive that we imagined ourselves within a few miles of the garrison, when, in reality, there was a march of twenty-nine long miles before us.

Our road led up from the river valley on the high bluffs, and sometimes followed along the backbone of hills from which on either side we looked down a great distance. There was barely room for the travelling-wagon. Occasionally I had been obliged to take refuge from the cold for a little while and drive. Our lead-mules were tiny, quick-moving little dots, and I soon discovered that they were completely demoralized at the sight of an Indian. They could see one in advance long before the driver could. A sudden shying and quick turning of these agile little brutes, a general tangle of themselves in the harness and legs of the wheelers, loud shouts of the driver, and a quick downfall of his foot on the brake, to keep us from overturning, made an exciting mêlée.

Nothing would get them righted and started again. They would have to be unharnessed, and the rebellious pair tied to the rear of the wagon until we had gone far beyond the object of terror. Part of the day that we were following the wanderings of the road alongside hills and over the narrow, smooth level of the hill-tops, I was compelled to drive, and I watched anxiously the ears of these wretched little beasts to see if they expressed any sentiment of fright. We came to such steep descents, the brake holding the wheels seemed of no use. Looking down from the wagon on to the mules below us, we appeared to be in the position of flies on a wall.

As we came to one descent more awful than the rest, the general, who was always near, rode up to the carriage and told me not to be afraid, for he would order the wheels manned. The head-quarters escort of over a hundred men, dismounting, attached ropes to the wheels, and held on with all their strength while I went down the steepest declivity I had ever descended. After that I begged to get out, and the general carried me to a bank and set me down where I could watch the repairing of the road.

He took off his coat and joined the soldiers in carrying logs and shovelling earth, for they were obliged to fill up the soft bed of the stream before the command could cross. It took a long time and much patience; but the general enjoyed it all, and often helped when the crossings needed to be prepared. When the logs were all laid, I had to laugh at the energy he showed in cracking a whip he borrowed from a teamster, and shouting to the mules to urge them to pull through where there was danger of their stalling. When the road was completed, I was ready to mount my horse, for it seemed to me preferable to die from accident, surrounded with friends, than to expire alone in the mule-wagon. The ascent was rendered so wet and slippery, the general feared my saddle would turn, and I was once more shut in by myself. The soldiers again manned the wheels to prevent the carriage sliding back, the mules scrambled, and with the aid of language prepared expressly for them, we reached the summit.

The driver had named the lead-mules Bettie and Jane, and when they were over their tempers he petted and caressed them. Their repeated rebellion at last wore out even his patience. One morning I noticed new leaders, but the imperturbable face of the driver gave no hint of his successful plotting. Mary told me, however, that he was worn out with his struggles, and had gone after dark into the herd of mules with Bettie and Jane, and, as he expressed it, “lost them.” He selected two more from among those belonging to the wagon-train, and returned triumphant over his premeditated exchange. He carefully reclipped their manes and tails, and disguised them still further with blotches of black paint, to give them a mottled appearance. When the other teamster prepared to harness in the morning, of course he discovered the fraud perpetrated on him. There was no redress then, and he had to take out his wrath in language more forcible than elegant, which the teamsters have adapted expressly for extreme occasions. Our driver told Mary, with a chuckle, that with a command of many hundred men waiting for a teamster to harness, he found “no time for swapping horses.”

Burkman, the soldier who took care of our horses, was a middle-aged man, so deliberate in speech and slow in his movements, he seemed as incongruous among the spirited cavalrymen as would be an old-time farmer. Early in the march I had heard him coughing as he groomed the horses. When I asked if he had done anything for his cold, he replied, “Bottle after bottle of stuff, mum, but it don’t do no good,” so I begged the surgeon to look more carefully into his case. He made an examination, and told me, as the result, that the man must have only light work and nourishing food. After that I asked Mary to save everything for Burkman and make his recovery her especial care. The officers made fun of me, as they were rather incredulous, and thought a bit of shamming was being practised on me, but I knew better. They never failed to comment and smile when they saw the old defender of his country coming out of the kitchen-tent, his jaws working and his mouth full, while he carried all the food his hands would hold. To tell the truth, he kept up this prescription of nourishing food long after he had quite recovered.

It became the delight of my husband and the officers to chaff me about “Old Nutriment,” for such was the sobriquet they gave him. At last, even Mary began to narrate how he swept everything before him with voracious, convalescing appetite. “Why, Miss Libbie,” she said to me one day, “I thought I’d try him with a can of raw tomatoes, and set them before him, asking if he was fond of them. And he just drawled out, ‘Always was,’ and the tomatoes were gone in no time.” His laconic answer passed into a proverb with us all, when invited to partake of anything we liked.

Such a tender heart as that old soldier had! I had noticed this first in Kentucky. My horse, which I prized above all that I have ever ridden, died during my temporary absence from home. I was too greatly grieved to ask many questions about him, but one day, some time afterwards, when we were riding through a charming bit of country, Burkman approached me from the place where he usually rode behind us, and said, “I’d like to tell Mrs. Custer there’s whar poor Phil lies I picked the purtiest place I could find for him.” And he had indeed, for the green valley under wide-spreading trees would have gone far to reconcile many a weary human heart to be placed under the sod.

We thought we had made the first step towards savage life when Burkman brought the mother of the one baby of our regiment the dried vertebra of a rattlesnake that he killed, because he had heard that it was the best of anything on which the infant could cut its teeth!

I had made some scarlet flannel shirts for my husband’s use on the summer campaign, and he was as much pleased as possible, beginning at once to wear them. Not many days’ march proved to me what an error I had made. The bright red color could be seen for miles, when the form itself was almost lost on the horizon. I had to coax to get them away again and replace them with the dark blue that he usually wore. Though I triumphed, I was met with a perfect fusillade of teasing when I presented the red shirts to Burkman. The officers, of course, hearing all the discussion over the subject—as no trifle was too small to interest us in one another’s affairs—attacked me at once. If I had been so anxious to protect the general from wearing anything that would attract the far-seeing eye of the vigilant Indian on the coming campaign, why should I be so willing to sacrifice the life of “Old Nutriment?” They made no impression on me, however, for they knew as well as I did that the soldier, though so faithful, was not made of that stuff that seeks to lead a Balaklava charge.

My husband and I were so attached to him, and appreciated so deeply his fidelity, we could not thank the good-fortune enough that gave us one so loyal to our interests.

Before we reached the post we were approaching, the commandant sent out ice for our use, and the despatches of the Associated Press. The general was greatly delighted to get news of events that had occurred all over the world, in this far distant land. We found afterwards that the officers joined in paying for the despatches. The Indians had such a superstition about molesting the wires, that the lines ran through even the most dangerous country. I can hardly say how good it seemed to us to see a telegraph-pole again.

We were not surprised, after seeing the other posts below on the river, that the guide had praised Fort Sully. It was the head-quarters of one of the infantry regiments, and the commanding officer had been at the post long enough to put it in excellent order. It was situated on an open plateau, from which there was an extensive view. Below in the valley the companies had gardens, and they also kept cows, pigs, and chickens. We looked upon all this as an El Dorado, and the thought of remaining long enough at one fort to get any good out of a garden was simply unknown in our vagrant existence.

Our camp was very near the post, on the same open plain, without trees or shelter. We were received with genuine hospitality, and finally all of us invited to luncheon. The ladies came up from the steamer, and the large house was filled with happy people. The post band played outside on the parade-ground while we lunched. We had nine kinds of game on the table. Some of it was new to us—the beaver tail, for instance—but it was so like pork and so fat I could only taste it. We had, in addition, antelope, elk, buffalo tongue, wild turkey, black-tailed deer, wild goose, plover, and duck. The goose was a sort of “fatted calf” for us. The soldiers had caught it while young, and by constantly clipping its wings, had kept it from joining the flocks which its cries often brought circling around the post. At last it began to make the life of the chickens a burden to them, and we arrived in time to enjoy the delicious bird served with jelly made from the tart, wild “bullberries” that grew near the river. The home-made bread, delightful cake, tender ham of the garrison’s own curing, and the sweets made with cream, fresh butter, and eggs—three unheard-of luxuries with us—proved that it is possible for army people to live in comfort if they do not belong to a mounted regiment. Still, though they had a band and a good library belonging to the regiment, the thought of being walled in with snow, and completely isolated for eight months of the year, made me shudder. The post was midway between Yankton and Bismarck, each the termination of a railroad, and each two hundred and fifty miles away.

The wife of the commanding officer was known throughout the department for her lovely Christian character, and the contented life she led under all circumstances. I was much amused at her account of her repeated trials in trying to secure a permanent governess. She said all the posts along the river seemed to know intuitively when a new one arrived from the East. The young officers found more imperative duties calling them to Fort Sully than they had dreamed of in a year. Before long the governess began to be abstracted, and watch longingly for the mails. A ring would next appear on the significant first finger, and be the forerunner of a request to allow her to resign her place. This had happened four times when I met our hostess, and though she was glad to furnish the officers with wives, she rather sighed for a woman who, though possessing every accomplishment, might still be so antiquated and ugly that she could be sure to keep her for a time at least.

The commandant had some fine greyhounds, and joining the general with his packs of stag and fox hounds, they had several hunts in the few days that remained. Of course, after so bright a visit and such a feast, it was hard to begin again on the march with baking-powder biscuit and tough beef. The cattle that supplied us with meat were driven along on the march, and killed every other day, and could not be expected to be in very good condition. The interest of our journey, however, made us soon forget all deprivations. Grateful sentiments towards those who had been so kind to us as strangers remained as a memory.

CHAPTER VII.
ADVENTURES DURING THE LAST DAYS OF THE MARCH.

My husband and I kept up our little détours by ourselves as we neared the hour for camping each day. One day one of the officers accompanied us. We left the higher ground to go down by the water and have the luxury of wandering through the cottonwood-trees that sometimes fringed the river for several miles. As usual, we had a number of dogs leaping and racing around us. Two of them started a deer, and the general bounded after them, encouraging the others with his voice to follow. He had left his friend with me, and we rode leisurely along to see that the younger dogs did not get lost. Without the least warning, in the dead stillness of that desolate spot, we suddenly came upon a group of young Indian warriors seated in their motionless way in the underbrush. I became perfectly cold and numb with terror. My danger in connection with the Indians was twofold. I was in peril from death or capture by the savages, and liable to be killed by my own friends to prevent my capture. During the five years I had been with the regiment in Kansas I had marched many hundred miles. Sometimes I had to join my husband going across a dangerous country, and the exposure from Indians all those years had been constant. I had been a subject of conversation among the officers, being the only woman who, as a rule, followed the regiment, and, without discussing it much in my presence, the universal understanding was that any one having me in charge in an emergency where there was imminent danger of my capture should shoot me instantly. While I knew that I was defended by strong hands and brave hearts, the thought of the double danger always flashed into my mind when we were in jeopardy.

If time could have been measured by sensations, a cycle seemed to have passed in those few seconds. The Indians snatched up their guns, leaped upon their ponies, and prepared for attack. The officer with me was perfectly calm, spoke to them coolly without a change of voice, and rode quickly beside me, telling me to advance. My horse reared violently at first sight of the Indians, and started to run. Gladly would I have put him to his mettle then, except for the instinct of obedience, which any one following a regiment acquires in all that pertains to military directions. The general was just visible ascending a bluff beyond. To avoid showing fear when every nerve is strung to its utmost, and your heart leaps into your throat, requires super-human effort. I managed to check my horse and did not scream. No amount of telling over to myself what I had been told, that all the tribes on this side were peaceable and that only those on the other side of the river were warlike, could quell the throbbing of my pulses. Indians were Indians to me, and I knew well that it was a matter of no time to cross and recross on their little tub-like boats that shoot madly down the tide.

What made me sure that these warriors whom we had just met were from the fighting bands was the recollection of some significant signs we had come upon in the road a few days previous. Stakes had been set in the ground, with bits of red flannel fastened on them peculiarly. This, the guide explained, meant warnings from the tribes at war to frighten us from any further advance into their country. Whether because of the coolness of the officer, or because the warriors knew of the size of the advancing column, we were allowed to proceed unharmed. How interminable the distance seemed to where the general awaited us, unconscious of what we had encountered! I was lifted out of the saddle a very limp and unconscious thing.

Encouraged by references to other dangers I had lived through without flinching, I mounted again and followed the leader closely. He took us through some rough country, where the ambitious horses, finding that by bending their heads they could squeeze through, forgot to seek openings high enough to admit those sitting in the saddle. We crashed through underbrush, and I, with habit torn and hands scratched, was sometimes almost lifted up, Absalom-like, by the resisting branches. Often we had no path, and the general’s horse, “Vic,” would start straight up steep banks after we had forded streams. It never occurred to his rider, until after the ascent was made, and a faint voice arose from the valley, that all horses would not do willingly what his thorough-bred did. He finally turned to look back and tell me how to manage my horse. I abandoned the bridle when we came to those ascents, and wound my hands in the horse’s mane to keep from sliding entirely off, while the animal took his own way. All this was such variety and excitement I was delighted, and forgot my terror of the morning.

We found a bit of lovely road, which only those who go hundreds of miles under a blazing sun can appreciate fully. The sunshine came flickering down through the branches of the trees and covered the short grass with checkered light and shade. Here we dawdled, and enjoyed looking up at the patches of blue sky through great grown-up tree-tops. It was like a bit of woods at home, where I never thought to be grateful for foliage, but took it as a matter of course. My husband remembered my having put some biscuit in the leather pocket on my saddle, and invited himself to luncheon at once. We dismounted, and threw ourselves on the ground to eat the very frugal fare.

After resting, we gave ourselves the privilege of a swift gallop over the stretch of smooth ground before us. We were laughing and talking so busily I never noticed the surroundings until I found we were almost in the midst of an Indian village, quite hidden under a bluff. My heart literally stood still. I watched the general furtively. He was as usual perfectly unmoved, and yet he well knew that this was the country where it was hardly considered that the Indian was overburdened with hospitality. Oh, how I wished ourselves safely with the column, now so far away! There were but few occupants of the village, but they glowered and growled, and I could see the venomous glances they cast on us as I meekly followed. I trembled so I could barely keep my seat as we slowly advanced, for the general even slackened his speed, to demonstrate to them, I suppose, that we felt ourselves perfectly at home. He said “How,” of course, which was his usual salutation to them. An echoing “how” beside him proved that I still had power of utterance. When we came to one Indian, who looked menacingly at us and doggedly stood in our road, the officer with us declared that I accompanied my “how” with a salaam so deep that it bent my head down to the pommel of my saddle! At all events, I meant, if politeness would propitiate, not to be deficient in that quality at such a critical moment.

In a few moments, which seemed however a lifetime, we saw the reason why the village appeared so empty. Men, women, and children had gone nearly to the top of the bluff, and there, with their bodies hidden, were looking off at a faint cloud of dust in the distance.

My husband, appreciating my terror, quickly assured me it was the 7th Cavalry. Even then, what a stretch of country it seemed between us and that blessed veil of sand, through which we perceived dimly that succor was at hand.

My horse was rather given to snuggling, and pressed so against the general that he made his leg very uncomfortable sometimes. But then, in my terror, it seemed to me an ocean of space was dividing us. I longed for the old Puritan days, when a wife rode on a pillion behind her liege as a matter of course.

I found courage to look back at last. The bluff was crowned with little irregularities, so still they seemed like tufts of grass or stones. They represented many pairs of bead-like eyes, that peered over the country at the advancing troops.

The next day the general thought I might rather not go with him than run the risk of such frights; but I well knew there was something far worse than fears for my own personal safety. It is infinitely worse to be left behind, a prey to all the horrors of imagining what may be happening to one we love. You eat your heart slowly out with anxiety, and to endure such suspense is simply the hardest of all trials that come to the soldier’s wife.

I gladly consented to be taken along every day, but there never seemed a time when it was not necessary to get accustomed to some new terror. However, it is only the getting used to it that is so bad. It is the unexpected things that require fresh relays of courage. When a woman has come out of danger, she is too utterly a coward by nature not to dread enduring the same thing again; but it is something to know that she is equal to it. Though she may tremble and grow faint in anticipation, having once been through it, she can count on rising to the situation when the hour actually comes.

The rattlesnakes were so numerous on this march that all Texas and Kansas experience seemed to dwarf in contrast. My horse was over sixteen hands high, but I would gladly have exchanged him for a camelopard when I rode suddenly almost upon a snake coiled in the grass, and looked down into the eyes of the upraised head. We counted those we encountered in one day’s journey until we were tired. The men became very expert and systematic in clearing the camp of these reptiles. If we halted at night in the underbrush, they cut and tore away the reeds and grass, and began at once to beat the ground and kill the snakes. When I say that as many as forty were killed in one night, some literal person may ask if I actually saw the bodies of all those “lately slain!” It is not an exaggerated story, however, and one only needs to see hundreds of men pounding and clearing such a place to realize that many snakes could be disposed of in a short time. After that, when the ground was selected for our camp in the low part of the valley, I was loath to lie down and sleep until the soldiers had come up to prepare the ground. My husband used to indulge this little prejudice of mine against making my head a reproduction of Medusa’s, and we often sought the high ground for a rest until the command came up.

The guide rode often at the head of the column, and we found him full of information about the country. We began also to listen for a new domestic disclosure every time we approached an Indian village. He was the most married of any man I ever saw, for in every tribe he had a wife. Still this superfluity did not burden him, for the ceremony of tying a marital knot in the far West is simple, and the wives support themselves. Sometimes he gave us new points about making ourselves comfortable in camp. One day I was very grateful to him. We were far in advance of the wagon-train containing the tents; the sun was scorching; not a tree, nor even a clump of bushes was near. In a brief time, however, the guide had returned from the stream, where he had cut some willow saplings, and sticking them in the ground made what he called “wik-a-up.” He wove the ends loosely together on top, and over this oval cover he threw the saddle blankets. There was just room enough to crawl into this oven-like place, but it was an escape from the heat of the sun, and I was soon asleep. After I emerged the general took my place. When he had taken his nap the dogs crept in; so a very grateful family thanked the guide for teaching us that new device.

The bends in the Missouri River are sometimes so long that the steamer with supplies would have to make a journey of sixty miles while we had perhaps only five to march across the peninsula. All the soldiers, officers’ servants, teamsters, and other citizen employés took that time to wash their clothes, for we were two days in camp. The creek on which we halted was lined with bending figures, their arms moving vigorously back and forth as they wrung out each article. Later on the camp looked like an animated laundry. From every tent-rope and bush floated the apparel. I had only a small valise for my summer’s outfit, but Mary had soon taken out our few things, and around the kitchen-tent was suspended the family linen. As soon as this was dry she folded and pressed it as best she could, and laid it between the mattresses as a substitute for ironing.

All the way up the river the guide was constantly interviewed as to the chances for fishing. He held out promises that were to be realized upon reaching Choteau Creek. We arrived there on one of the resting-days, and camp was no sooner made, and food and water brought, than a great exodus took place.

The general called me to the tent-door to see the deserted camp, and wondered how the soldiers could all have disappeared so quickly. Another problem was, where the fishing-tackle came from! Some had brought rods, even in the restricted space allotted them, but many cut them from the bushes along the river, attaching hooks and lines, while some bent pins and tied them to strings. The soldiers shared so generously with one another that one pole was loaned about while the idle ones watched. I never cared for fishing, but my husband begged me to go with him always, and carried my book and work. I sat under a bush near him, which he covered with a shawl to protect me from the sun, and there we stayed for hours. Officers and men competed alike for the best places by the quiet pools. The general could hardly pay attention to his line, he was so interested watching the men and enjoying their pleasure. His keen sense of the ludicrous took in the comical figures as far as we could see. In cramped and uncomfortable positions, with earnest eyes fixed steadily in one place for hours, they nearly fell into the water with excitement if they chanced to draw out a tiny fish. The other men came from all along the bank to observe if any one was successful.

One of the men near us was a member of the band. He was a perfect reproduction of the old prints of Izaak Walton. The fixedness of his gaze—his whole soul in his eyes—while he was utterly unconscious of any one being near, was too much for the general’s equanimity. He put his head under the canopy made by my shawl, not daring to laugh aloud, for fear he might be heard by the man, and said it was more fun to see that soldier fish than to hear him play on the violin. No wonder the men enjoyed the sport, for even these little bull-fish, fairly gritty from the muddy water in which they lived, were a great addition to their pork and hard-tack fare.

For once the sun overcame me, and I knew the ignominy of being compelled to own that I was dizzy and faint. I had not been long in military life before I was as much ashamed of being ill as if I had been a real soldier. The troops pride themselves on being invulnerable to bodily ailments. I was obliged to submit to being helped back to camp, and in the cool of the evening watched the return of the fishers, who were as proud of the strings of ugly little things they carried as if they had been pickerel or bass. Then the blue flame and soft smoke began to ascend from the evening fires, and the odor from the frying supper rose on the air.

In my indolent, weak condition I never knew how I was able to perform such agile pirouettes as I did; but hearing a peculiar sound, I looked down and saw a huge rattlesnake gliding towards me. I had long ago learned to suppress shrieks, but I forgot all such self-control then. How I wished myself the Indian baby we had seen the day before—the veritable “baby in the tree-top,” for it was tied by buckskin thongs to a limb! There I thought I could rest in peace. The snake was soon despatched. The men had left camp so hurriedly in the morning that the usual beating of the ground was omitted, and so I had this unwelcome visitor.

When we camped near a village, the Indians soon appeared. Groups of half a dozen on ponies, with children running after, would come. The ponies were, most of them, dull and sway-backed. It was no wonder, for I have seen four persons on one pony—an Indian and three half-grown boys. No horse could keep its shape loaded down, as those of the Indians usually are, with game and property. These visitors grew to be great trials, for they were inveterate beggars. One day an old Indian, called “The-Man-with-the-Broken-Ear,” came riding in, elaborately decorated and on a shapely pony. He demanded to see the chief. The general appeared, assisted him to dismount, and seated him in my camp-chair. The savage leaned back in a grand sort of manner and calmly surveyed us all. I was soon in agonies of anxiety, for Colonel Tom and the young officers lounging near entered the tent. They bowed low, took the hand of the old fellow with profound deference, and, smiling benignly, addressed him. In just as suave a voice as if their words had been genuine flattery, they said, “You confounded old galoot, why are you here begging and thieving, when your wretched old hands are hardly dry from some murder, and your miserable mouth still red from eating the heart of your enemy?” Each one saluted him, and each vied with the other in pouring forth a tirade of forcible expletives, to which he bowed in acknowledgment and shook hands. My terror was that he might understand, for we often found these people as cunning as foxes, sitting stolid and stupid, pretending not to know a word, while they understood the gist of much that was said.

The officers gave this chief tobacco—Perique I think it is called—and so strong that, though I was accustomed to all kinds, I rather avoided the odor of it. We had no whiskey, but if we had kept it, the general obeyed the law of the reservation too strictly to allow it to be given away. He was called to the office-tent a few moments, and in a trice one of the others had emptied the alcohol from the spirit-lamp and offered the cup to the distinguished guest. Putting the great square of Perique into his mouth, with a biscuit beside, he washed it all down with gulps of the burning fluid. His eyes, heretofore dull, sparkled at the sight of the fire-water. The officers said, “How,” and he replied, “How.” This did not surprise me, for that one word is the Indian toast, and all tribes know it. But my breath almost went out of my body when they asked him if he would have more, and he replied, “You bet.” I was sure then that he had understood all the railing speeches and that he would plan a revenge. Loud cries of laughter greeted his reply; but matching their cunning against his, they eventually found that he knew no more English. He had learned these words, without understanding their meaning, at the trader’s store on the reservation. He waited around in the tent, hoping for more alcohol, until I was weary of the sight of him; but I was too much afraid of him, limp as he then was, to look bored.

Finally he was lifted out, a tumbled up, disorganized heap of drooping feathers, trailing blanket, and demoralized legs. When once, however, one drunken old foot was lifted over the pony for him, he swung himself into the saddle, and though swaying uncertainly, he managed to ride away.

During the last days of our march we came upon another premonitory warning from the Indians. A pole was found stuck in the trail before us, with a red flag, to which were fastened locks of hair. It was a challenge, and when interpreted meant, that if we persisted in advancing, the hostiles were ready to meet the soldiers and fight them. The officers paid little attention to this, but my heart was like lead for days afterwards.

We encamped that night near what the Indians call “Medicine Rock;” my husband and I walked out to see it. It was a large stone, showing on the flat surface the impress of hands and feet made ages ago, before the clay was petrified. The Indians had tied bags of their herb medicine on poles about the rock, believing that virtue would enter into articles left in the vicinity of this proof of the marvels or miracles of the Great Spirit. Tin cans, spoons, and forks, that they had bought at the Agency, on account of the brightness of the metal, were left there as offerings to an unseen God.

Everything pertaining to the Indians was new and interesting to me. While we were in Kansas the tribes were at war, and we had not the opportunity to see their daily life as we did while passing through the Sioux reservations on the march.

I regretted each day that brought us nearer to the conclusion of our journey, for though I had been frightened by Indians, and though we had encountered cold, storms, and rough life, the pleasures of the trip over-balanced the discomforts.

CHAPTER VIII.
SEPARATION AND REUNION.

The day at last came for our march of five hundred miles to terminate. A rickety old ferryboat that took us over the river made a halt near Fort Rice, and there we established ourselves. Strange to say, the river was no narrower there than it was so many hundred miles below, where we started. Muddy and full of sand-bars as it was, we began bravely to drink the water, when the glass had been filled long enough for the sediment partially to settle, and to take our bath in what at first seemed liquid mud. We learned after a time to settle the water with alum, and we finally became accustomed to the taste.

The commandant at Fort Rice was most hospitable, and his wife charming. The quarters were very ordinary frame buildings, with no modern improvements. They were painted a funereal tint, but one warranted to last. The interior showed the presence of a tasteful woman. She met us as cheerfully as if she were in the luxurious home from which we knew she had gone as a girl to follow a soldier’s life. Contrast often helps us to endure, and Dakota was not so bad as their last station in Arizona. The dinner was excellent, and our entertainers were the happy possessors of a good cook. Rarely do army people have two good servants at the same time on the frontier. Our host and hostess made no apologies, but quietly waited on the table themselves, and a merry time we had over the blunders of the head of the house, who was a distinguished general, in his endeavors to find necessary dishes in the china closet.

A steamer that arrived a day or two after we had reached Fort Rice brought the regimental property, consisting of everything that was not used on the march. Our household effects and trunks were delivered to us in a very sorry condition. They had been carelessly stored on the wharf at Yankton, near the government warehouse, without any covering, during all the storms that drenched us coming up the river. Almost everything was mildewed and ruined. We tried to dry our clothing in the sun. Many a little bit of silken finery that we had cherished since our marriage days, feeling sure that we should never attain to such grandeur again, was suspended from the tent-ropes, stained and dull. Our sister’s husband helped her to unpack her clothes and his own soaked uniform. He was dignified and reserved by nature, but on that occasion the barriers were broken. I heard him ask Margaret to excuse him while he went outside the tent to make some remarks to himself that he felt the occasion demanded. There were furious people on all sides, and savage speeches about the thoughtlessness of those who had left our property exposed to snow and rain, when we were no longer there to care for it. I endured everything until my pretty wedding-dress was taken out, crushed and spotted with mildew. My husband had great control over himself in the small annoyances of life, and was able to repeat again the proverb he had adopted in his boyhood, “Never cry for spilled milk.” How he could submit so quietly, when he took out his prized books and the few pictures I knew that he valued, was a mystery.

All thought began now to centre on the coming events of the summer. It was decided that the regiment was to go out to guard the engineers of the Northern Pacific Railroad while they surveyed the route from Bismarck to the Yellowstone River. The ladies necessarily were to be left behind. Now began the summer of my discontent. I longed to remain in Dakota, for I knew it would take much longer for our letters to reach us if we went East. Besides, it was far more comforting to stay at a military post, where every one was interested in the expedition, and talked about it as the chief topic of concern. I remembered when I had gone East before, during a summer when our regiment was fighting Indians, and my idea was that the whole country would be almost as absorbed as we were, how shocked I was to be asked, when I spoke of the regiment, “Ah, is there a campaign, and for what purpose has it gone out?”

I was willing to live in a tent alone at the post, but there were not even tents to be had. Then we all looked with envious eyes at the quarters at Fort Rice. The post was small, and there were no vacant rooms except in the bachelor quarters. These are so called when the unmarried men take rooms in the same house and mess together. No opportunity was given us to wheedle them into offering us a place. Our officers hinted to them, but they seemed to be completely intimidated regarding women. They received an honest and emphatic “no” when they asked if the ladies of the 7th Cavalry quarrelled. Even then these wary men said “they did not dare to offer to take in any women.” They added that there were but three in the post, and no two of them spoke to each other. They thought if we were asked to remain it might be the history of the Kilkenny cats repeated, and they were obdurate.

There was nothing left for us, then, but to go home. It was a sore disappointment. We were put on the steamer that was to take us to Bismarck, a heart-broken little group. I hated Dakota, the ugly river, and even my native land. We were nearly devoured with mosquitoes at once. Only the strongest ammonia on our faces and hands served to alleviate the torment. The journey was wretchedness itself. I had thrown myself on the berth in one of the little suffocating state-rooms, exhausted with weeping, and too utterly overcome with the anguish of parting to know much of the surroundings. I was roused by the gentle hand of a woman, who had forgotten her own troubles to come to me. Ah, even now, when the tears rain down my face at the remembrance of those agonizing good-byes, which were like death each time, and which grew harder with each separation, I think of the sympathy shown me. The sweet, tender eyes of the wives of officers come to me now, and I feel the soft touch of their hands as they came to comfort me, even when their own hearts were wrung. Grief is so selfish, I wonder now that they could have been such ministering angels.

At last the slow, wearisome journey was over, and we went into the little town of Bismarck to take the cars. The Department Commander, returning to his head-quarters, had offered to take charge of us to St. Paul, and was kind enough to share with us the car of the President of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which had been placed at his disposal. There were seven of us and his own personal staff. Another five hundred miles were before us, but in such luxury it hardly seemed that my sister and I were the same two who had been “roughing it” on the march a few days before.

The journey was very quiet and over an uninteresting country, but we ladies had something to occupy our time, as we began to prepare some of our meals, for the untidy eating-houses on the road were almost unendurable. The staff of the Commanding General went out at the stations and foraged for what food they could find to add to our bill of fare. At St. Paul we bade them all good-bye, and soon found ourselves welcomed by dear father and mother Custer, at Monroe. Their hearts were ever with the absent ones.

For several slow, irksome months I did little else than wait for the tardy mails, and count each day that passed a gain. I had very interesting letters from my husband, sometimes thirty and forty pages in length. He wrote of his delight at having again his whole regiment with him, his interest in the country, his hunting exploits, and the renewal of his friendship with General Rosser. The 7th Cavalry were sent out to guard the engineers of the Northern Pacific, while they surveyed the route to the Yellowstone. This party of citizens joined the command a few days out from Fort Rice. The general wrote me that he was lying on the buffalo-robe in his tent, resting after the march, when he heard a voice outside asking the sentinel which was General Custer’s tent. The general called out, “Halloo, old fellow! I haven’t heard that voice in thirteen years, but I know it. Come in and welcome!”

General Rosser walked in, and such a reunion as they had! These two had been classmates and warm friends at West Point, and parted with sorrow when General Rosser went into the Southern army. Afterwards they had fought each other in the Shenandoah Valley time and time again. Both of them lay on the robe for hours talking over the campaigns in Virginia. In the varying fortunes of war, sometimes one had got possession of the wagon-train belonging to the other. I knew of several occasions when they had captured each other’s head-quarters wagons with the private luggage. If one drove the other back in retreat, before he went into camp he wrote a note addressing the other as “dear friend,” and saying, “you may have made me take a few steps this way to-day, but I’ll be even with you to-morrow. Please accept my good-wishes and this little gift.” These notes and presents were left at the house of some Southern woman, as they retreated out of the village.

Once General Custer took all of his friend’s luggage, and found in it a new uniform coat of Confederate gray. He wrote a humorous letter that night thanking General Rosser for setting him up in so many new things, but audaciously asking if he “would direct his tailor to make the coat-tails of his next uniform a little shorter” as there was a difference in the height of the two men. General Custer captured his herd of cattle at one time, but he was so hotly pursued by General Rosser that he had to dismount, cut a whip, and drive them himself until they were secured.

To return to the Yellowstone expedition. The hour for starting never varied more than a few moments during the summer, and it was so early the civilians connected with the engineering party could not become reconciled to it. In the afternoon my husband sometimes walked out on the outskirts of camp, and threw himself down in the grass to rest with his dogs beside him.

It was a source of amusement to him if he accidentally overheard the grumbling. His campaigning dress was so like that of an enlisted man, and his insignia of rank so unnoticeable, that the tongues ran on, indifferent to his presence. Sometimes, in their growling, the civilians accused him of having something on his conscience, and declared that, not being able to sleep himself, he woke every one else to an unearthly reveille. At this he choked with laughter, and to their dismay they discovered who he was.

I remember his telling me of another occasion, when he unavoidably heard a soldier exclaim, “There goes taps, and before we get a mouthful to eat, reveille will sound, and ‘Old Curley’ will hike us out for the march.” The soldier was slightly discomfited to find the subject of his remarks was within hearing.

The enlisted men were constantly finding new names for the general, which I would never have known—thereby losing some amusement—if Mary had not occasionally told me of them. A favorite was “Jack,” the letters G. A. C. on his valise having served as a suggestion.

When the expedition returned from the Yellowstone, a despatch came to me in Michigan, saying the regiment had reached Fort Lincoln in safety. Another soon followed, informing me that my husband was on his way home. The relief from constant anxiety and suspense, together with all the excitement into which I was thrown, made me almost unfit to make preparation to meet him. There was to be an army reunion in the city nearest us, and in my impatience I took the first train, thinking to reach there in advance of General Custer. As I walked along the street, looking into shop-windows, I felt, rather than saw, a sudden rush from a door, and I was taken off my feet and set dancing in air. Before I could resent what I thought was an indignity, I discovered that it was my husband, who seemed utterly regardless of the passers-by. He was sunburnt and mottled, for the flesh was quite fair where he had cut his beard, the growth of the summer. He told me the officers with whom he had travelled in the Pullman car had teased him, and declared that no man would shave in a car going at forty miles an hour, except to prepare to meet his sweetheart. I was deeply grateful, though, for I knew the fiery tint of the beard, and infinitely preferred the variegated flesh tints of his sunburnt face.

CHAPTER IX.
OUR NEW HOME AT FORT LINCOLN.

In a few days we were ready to return to Dakota, and very glad to go, except for leaving the old parents.

The hardest trial of my husband’s life was parting with his mother. Such partings were the only occasions when I ever saw him lose entire control of himself, and I always looked forward to the hour of their separation with dread.

For hours before we started, I have seen him follow his mother about, whispering some comforting word to her; or, opening the closed door of her own room, where, womanlike, she fought out her grief alone, sit beside her as long as he could endure it. She had been an invalid for so many years that each parting seemed to her the final one. Her groans and sobs were heart-rending. She clung to him every step when he started to go, and exhausted at last, was led back, half fainting, to her lounge.

The general would rush out of the house, sobbing like a child, and then throw himself into the carriage beside me completely unnerved. I could only give silent comfort. My heart bled for him, and in the long silence that followed as we journeyed on, I knew that his thoughts were with his mother. At our first stop he was out of the cars in an instant, buying fruit to send back to her. Before we were even unpacked in the hotel, where we made our first stay of any length, he had dashed off a letter. I have since seen those missives. No matter how hurriedly he wrote, they were proofs of the tenderest, most filial love, and full of the prophecies he never failed to make, of the reunion that he felt would soon come.

After long debates with her parents, we had captured a young lady who was to return with us. She was a “joy forever,” and submitted without a word to the rough part of our journey. After we left St. Paul, the usual struggle for decent food began. Some of the officers returning from leave of absence had joined us, and we made as merry over our hardships as we could. When we entered the eating-houses, one young member of our party, whom we called the “butter fiend,” was made the experimenter. If he found the butter too rancid to eat undisguised, he gave us a hint by saying, under his breath, “this is a double-over place.” That meant that we must put a layer of bread on top of the butter to smother the taste.

The general was so sensitive when living in civilization that the heartiest appetite would desert him if an allusion to anything unpleasant or a reference to suffering was made at the table. But he never seemed to be conscious of surroundings when “roughing it.” Of course I had learned to harden myself to almost anything by this time, but I can see the wide-open eyes of our girl friend when she saw us eat all around any foreign ingredients we found in our food. She nearly starved on a diet consisting of the interior of badly-baked potatoes and the inside of soggy rolls.

One of the eating-places on the road was kept in a narrow little house, built on a flat car. Two men presided, one cooking and the other waiting on the table. We were laboriously spearing our food with two tined forks, and sipping the muddy coffee with a pewter spoon, when I heard with surprise the general asking for a napkin. It seemed as foreign to the place as a finger-bowl. The waiter knew him, however, and liked him too well to refuse him anything; so he said, “I have nothing but a towel, general.” “Just the thing, just the thing,” repeated my husband, in his quick, jolly way. So the man tied a long crash towel under his chin, and the general ate on, too indifferent to appearances to care because the tableful of travellers smiled.

When we finally reached the termination of the road at Bismarck, another train was about starting back to St. Paul. The street was full of people, wildly expostulating and talking loudly and fiercely. It appeared that this was the last train of the season, as the cars were not to run during the winter. The passengers were mostly Bismarck citizens, whose lawless life as gamblers and murderers had so outraged the sentiments of the few law-abiding residents that they had forced them to depart. We could see these outlaws crowding at the door, hanging out of the windows, swearing and menacing, and finally firing on the retreating crowd as the cars passed out of town. I was inclined to remain a fixture in our car; to step down into such a melée was too much for my courage. The general made allowance for my fears, and we were quietly slipped out on the other side of the depot, hurried into the ambulance, and driven to the river.

The ice was already thick enough to bear our weight part way over; then came a swift rushing torrent of water which had to be crossed in a small boat. Some of the soldiers rowed, while one kept the huge cakes of floating ice from our frail boat with a long, iron-pointed pole. As I stepped into the little craft, I dropped upon the bottom and hid my eyes, and no amount of reference to dangers I had encountered before induced me to look up. The current of the Missouri is so swift it is something dreadful to encounter. We were lifted out upon the ice again, and walked to the bank. Once more on shore, I said to myself, here will I live and die, and never go on that river again.

Our brother, Colonel Tom, met us, and drove us to our new home. In the dim light I could see the great post of Fort Lincoln, where only a few months before we had left a barren plain. Our quarters were lighted, and as we approached, the regimental band played “Home, Sweet Home,” followed by the general’s favorite, “Garryowen.”

The general had completely settled the house before he left for the East, but he had kept this fact secret, as a surprise. Our friends had lighted it all, and built fires in the fireplaces. The garrison had gathered to welcome us, and Mary had a grand supper ready. How we chattered and gloried over the regiment having a home at last. It seemed too good to believe that the 7th Cavalry had a post of its own, with room for the half of the regiment assigned to duty there. In other garrisons, when we had come in late in the fall from campaigns, the officers, in order to get places for themselves, had been obliged to turn some one else out. There is a disagreeable, though probably necessary law in the army regulations, which directs officers to take their quarters according to rank.

Fort Lincoln was built with quarters for six companies. The barracks for the soldiers were on the side of the parade-ground nearest the river, while seven detached houses for officers faced the river opposite. On the left of the parade-ground was the long granary and the little military prison, called the “guard-house.” Opposite, completing the square, were the quartermaster and commissary storehouses for supplies and the adjutant’s office. Outside the garrison proper, near the river, were the stables for six hundred horses. Still farther beyond were the quarters for the laundresses, easily traced by the swinging clothes-lines in front, and dubbed for this reason “Suds Row.” Some distance on from there were the log-huts of the Indian scouts and their families, while on the same side also was the level plain used for parades and drill. On the left of the post was the sutler’s store, with a billiard-room attached. Soon after the general arrived he permitted a citizen to put up a barber-shop, and afterwards another built a little cabin of cotton-wood, with canvas roof for a photographer’s establishment.

The post was located in a valley, while just back of us stretched a long chain of bluffs. On the summit of a hill, nearly a mile to the left, was a small infantry garrison, which had been established some time, and now belonged to our post. When we went to return the visits of the infantry ladies, the mules dragged the ambulance up the steep hill with difficulty. We found living in this bleak place—in small, shabbily built quarters, such as a day-laborer would consider hardly good enough for his family—delicate women and children, who, as usual, made no complaint about their life. Afterwards we were much indebted to one of the ladies, who, determined to conquer fate, varied our lives and gave us something to look forward to, by organizing a reading-club that met every week. She had sent to the East, before the trains ceased running, for the new books.

This little post had been built before the railroad was completed, and the houses were put together with as few materials as possible. There was no plastering, but the ceilings and partitions were of thick paper made for the purpose. When narrow mouldings of wood were tacked over the joined places, and all of it painted, the effect was very pretty. When it was torn and ragged it looked poverty-stricken enough. In one set of quarters there chanced to be so many children and so little room that the parents had invented a three-story bed, where the little ones could be all stowed at night. While we were calling there one day, I sat talking with the cheerful little mother, and wondering how she could be so bright. Everything in garrison life was, of course, new to my girl friend, and I discovered she was trying to smother a laugh. She commanded a view of the inner door. One of the children, who had been beating the wall and crying to enter, had finally made preliminary preparations. She had thrust through a hole in the paper partition each article of her little wardrobe, even to her shoes, and was putting the first rosy foot through after them. When the mother discovered this she laughed heartily, and gave us thus an opportunity to join her.

Our own post was somewhat sheltered by the bluffs behind; but though our quarters were plastered, the unseasoned lumber warped, and it was a struggle to keep warm. The wood with which we were provided was far from dry, and much of it of that kind that burns quickly but sends out little heat. It seemed to require the entire time of one man to keep up the fires. It was thus a blessed thing for the poor fellow whose duty it was, for he had never been able to remain long with his company at a time. He had an uncontrollable habit of drinking. Most of the time he belonged to the band of prisoners who are taken out of the guard-house every day, under a sentinel, to police the garrison and cut the wood. Mary gave them the coffee and whatever else was left from the table every day. This seemingly worthless fellow told Mary that he believed he could “keep straight” if Mrs. Custer would get the general to remit his sentence and let him come to us to keep the fires. So he came, and was occasionally sober for some time. He learned to go through the house with his arms full of wood when he was quite drunk. He really had too much heart to cause me trouble, and used to say, “Mary, I am pretty full, but don’t let Mrs. Custer know it, for I told her I would not do so again, and I don’t like to make her feel bad.” So Mary spied out the land before him and opened his doors. After he had tried her patience long, she finally lost her temper on finding that he had swallowed all the Worcestershire sauce and her bottle of pain-killer. She held out the can of kerosene oil to him, and asked if he would not add that to his dram, and began such a berating that he hurried off to escape from the violence of her tongue.

The soldiers asked the general’s permission to put up a place in which they could have entertainments, and he gave them every assistance he could. They prepared the lumber in the saw-mill that belonged to the post. The building was an ungainly looking structure, but large enough to hold them all. The unseasoned cotton-wood warped even while the house was being built, but by patching and lining with old torn tents, they managed to keep out the storm. The scenery was painted on condemned canvas stretched on a frame-work, and was lifted on and off as the plays required. The footlights in front of the rude stage were tallow-candles that smoked and sputtered inside the clumsily cobbled casing of tin. The seats were narrow benches, without backs. The officers and ladies were always invited to take the front row at every new performance, and after they entered, the house filled up with soldiers. Some of the enlisted men played very well, and used great ingenuity in getting up their costumes. The general accepted every invitation, and enjoyed it all greatly. The clog-dancing and negro character songs between the acts were excellent. Indeed, we sometimes had professionals, who, having been stranded in the States, had enlisted.

A regiment is recruited from all classes and conditions of men. Occasionally accident revealed the secret that there were fugitives from justice in the ranks. If they changed their names, they found no place where they were so hidden from every one they ever knew as in a regiment that is always on duty in the territories. It came to pass sometimes that a man of title, who had “left his country for his country’s good,” wore the government blue as a disguise, and served as a trooper for want of anything better to do. Among the men who sent word they would be glad to help me about the house when we were settling—either as a carpenter, a saddler to sew carpets, or a blacksmith to put up stoves—there were several with histories. Though they were strictly military with the general, observing the rule of never speaking unless spoken to, they sought the first opportunity to tell me their troubles. These were invariably domestic difficulties, until I began to think our regiment was “a city of refuge” for outraged husbands. It would eventually be found out that these men had run away and enlisted under assumed names, when driven desperate by the scoldings of a turbulent wife. Time, and the loneliness of a soldier’s life, would soften their woes, and they began at last to sigh even for the high-pitched voice of the deserted woman. The general felt as badly as I did when I carried their stories to him, begging him to get them discharged. He had a little fashion, however, of asking me to remember that about this, as about every other subject that we ever discussed, “there were always two sides to a question.” My sympathy for the soldiers in trouble was of little avail, for the law compelling them to serve the five years out was irrevocable. All I could do was to write letters at their solicitation, revealing their identity and asking for a reconciliation.

My husband’s duties extended over a wide range. If the laundresses had a serious difficulty, he was asked to settle it. They had many pugilists among them, and the least infringement of their rights provoked a battle in which wood and other missiles filled the air. Bandaged and bruised, they brought their wrongs to our house, where both sides had a hearing. The general had occasionally to listen and arbitrate between husband and wife, when the laundress and her soldier husband could not agree. I was banished from the room, while he heard their story and gave them counsel. In the same way he listened to whatever complaints the soldiers made. Some of them came into our quarters on one occasion with a tin cup of coffee for the general to taste, and determine whether he agreed with them that it was too poor to drink. From that time on, after every Sunday morning inspection, the general went with all the officers to visit the kitchens, as well as the barracks of each company, and every troop commander was called upon to pass criticisms on the cleanliness of the quarters and the wholesomeness of the food.

CHAPTER X.
INCIDENTS OF EVERY-DAY LIFE.

The companies each gave a ball in turn during the winter, and the preparations were begun long in advance. There was no place to buy anything, save the sutler’s store and the shops in the little town of Bismarck, but they were well ransacked for materials for the supper. The bunks where the soldiers slept were removed from the barracks, and flags festooned around the room. Arms were stacked and guidons arranged in groups. A few pictures of distinguished men were wreathed in imitation laurel leaves cut out of green paper. Chandeliers and side brackets carved out of cracker-box boards into fantastic shapes were filled with candles, while at either end of the long room great logs in the wide fireplaces threw out a cheerful light.

The ball opened, headed by the first-sergeant. After this the officers and their wives were invited to form a set at one end of the room, and we danced several times. One of the men whose voice was clear and loud sang the calls. He was a comical genius, and improvised new ways of calling off. When the place came in the quadrille to “Turn your partners,” his voice rose above the music, in the notes of the old song, “Oh swing those girls, those pretty little girls, those girls you left behind you!” This was such an inspiration to the fun-lovers that the swinging usually ended in our being whirled in the air by the privileged members of our family.

The soldiers were a superb lot of men physically. The out-door life had developed them into perfect specimens of vigorous manhood. After the company tailor had cut over their uniforms, they were often the perfection of good fitting. The older soldiers wore, on the sleeves of their coats, the rows of braid that designate the number of years in the service. Some had the army badges of the corps in which they fought during the war, while an occasional foreign decoration showed that they had been brave soldiers in the fatherland. We were escorted out to the supper-room in the company-kitchen in advance of the enlisted men. The general delighted the hearts of the sergeant and ball-managers by sitting down to a great dish of potato-salad. It was always well-flavored with the onion, as rare out there, and more appreciated than pomegranates are in New York. We ladies took cake, of course, but sparingly, for it was also a great luxury.

When we returned to watch the dancing, the general was on nettles for fear we should be wanting in tact, and show our amusement by laughing at the costumes of the women. There was but a sprinkling of them: several from Bismarck and a few white servants of the officers. Each company was allowed but three or four laundresses. The soldier was obliged to ask permission to marry, and his engagement was a weary waiting sometimes. In order to get a vacancy for his sweetheart, he had to await the discharge of some other soldier from the company, whose wife held the appointment of laundress. These women were at the ball in full force, and each one brought her baby. When we removed our wraps in the room of the first-sergeant we usually found his bed quite full of curly-headed infants sleeping, while the laundress mothers danced. The toilets of these women were something marvellous in construction. In low neck and short sleeves, their round, red arms and well-developed figures wheeled around the barracks all night long. Even the tall Mexican laundress, hereafter specially mentioned, would deck herself in pink tarletan and false curls, and notwithstanding her height and colossal anatomy, she had constant partners.

The little Dutch woman, who loved her husband more devotedly after each beating, and did not dance with any one else, was never absent from the balls. Her tiny little figure was suspended between heaven and earth while her tall soldier whirled her around the long hall in the endless German waltz. Some officer would whisper slyly in my ear, as she bowed and smiled in passing, “Do you see the get-up of ‘Old Trooble Agin?’” She had long before earned this sobriquet, when coming to me for help out of her misfortunes, beginning each story of woe with “Trooble agin.” Wherever we were, when the orders were issued for a campaign, she soon appeared claiming sympathy. No one could feel at such a time more than I the truth of her preface, for if we were to be left behind, it was, indeed, “Trouble again.”

The pack of hounds were an endless source of delight to the general. We had about forty: the stag-hounds that run by sight, and are on the whole the fleetest and most enduring dogs in the world, and the fox-hounds that follow the trail with their noses close to the ground. The first rarely bark, but the latter are very noisy. The general and I used to listen with amusement to their attempts to strike the key-note of the bugler when he sounded the calls summoning the men to guard mount, stables, or retreat. It rather destroyed the military effect to see, beside his soldierly figure, a hound sitting down absorbed in imitation. With lifted head and rolling eyes there issued from the broad mouth notes so doleful they would have answered for a misericordia.

The fox-hounds were of the most use in the winter, for the hunting was generally in the underbrush and timber along the river. I never tired of watching the start for the hunt. The general was a figure that would have fixed attention anywhere. He had marked individuality of appearance, and a certain unstudied carelessness in the wearing of his costume that gave a picturesque effect, not the least out of place on the frontier. He wore troop-boots reaching to his knees, buckskin breeches fringed on the sides, a dark navy blue shirt with a broad collar, a red necktie, whose ends floated over his shoulder exactly as they did when he and his entire division of cavalry had worn them during the war. On the broad felt hat, that was almost a sombrero, was fastened a slight mark of his rank.

He was at this time thirty-five years of age, weighed one hundred and seventy pounds, and was nearly six feet in height. His eyes were clear blue and deeply set, his hair short, wavy, and golden in tint. His mustache was long and tawny in color; his complexion was florid, except where his forehead was shaded by his hat, for the sun always burned his skin ruthlessly.

He was the most agile, active man I ever knew, and so very strong and in such perfect physical condition that he rarely knew even an hour’s indisposition.

Horse and man seemed one when the general vaulted into the saddle. His body was so lightly poised and so full of swinging, undulating motion, it almost seemed that the wind moved him as it blew over the plain. Yet every nerve was alert and like finely tempered steel, for the muscles and sinews that seemed so pliable were equal to the curbing of the most fiery animal. I do not think that he sat his horse with more grace than the other officers, for they rode superbly, but it was accounted by others almost an impossibility to dislodge the general from the saddle, no matter how vicious the horse might prove. He threw his feet out of the stirrups the moment the animal began to show his inclination for war, and with his knees dug into the sides of the plunging brute, he fought and always conquered. With his own horses he needed neither spur nor whip. They were such friends of his, and his voice seemed so attuned to their natures, they knew as well by its inflections as by the slight pressure of the bridle on their necks what he wanted. By the merest inclination on the general’s part, they either sped on the wings of the wind or adapted their spirited steps to the slow movement of the march. It was a delight to see them together, they were so in unison, and when he talked to them, as though they had been human beings, their intelligent eyes seemed to reply.

As an example of his horsemanship he had a way of escaping from the stagnation of the dull march, when it was not dangerous to do so, by riding a short distance in advance of the column over a divide, throwing himself on one side of his horse so as to be entirely out of sight from the other direction, giving a signal that the animal understood, and tearing off at the best speed that could be made. The horse entered into the frolic with all the zest of his master, and after the race the animal’s beautiful, distended nostrils glowed blood-red as he tossed his head and danced with delight.

In hunting, the general rode either Vic or Dandy. The dogs were so fond of the latter, they seemed to have little talks with him. The general’s favorite dog, Blücher, would leap up to him in the saddle, and jump fairly over the horse in starting. The spirited horses, mounted by officers who sat them so well, the sound of the horn used for the purpose of calling the dogs, their answering bay, the glad voices, and “whoop-la” to the hounds as the party galloped down the valley, are impressions ineffaceable from my memory. They often started a deer within sound of the bugle at the post. In a few hours their shouts outside would call me to the window, and there, drooping across the back of one of the orderlies’ horses, would be a magnificent black-tailed deer. We had a saddle of venison hanging on the wood-house almost constantly during the winter. The officers’, and even the soldiers’, tables had this rarity to vary the monotony of the inevitable beef.

After these hunts the dogs had often to be cared for. They would be lame, or cut in the chase, through the tangle of vines and branches. These were so dense it was a constant wonder to the general how the deer could press through with its spreading antlers. The English hounds, unacquainted with our game, used to begin with a porcupine sometimes. It was pitiful, though for a moment at first sight amusing, to see their noses and lips looking like animated pin-cushions. There was nothing for us to do after such an encounter but to begin surgery at once. The general would not take time to get off his hunting-clothes nor go near the fire until he had called the dog into his room and extracted the painful quills with the tweezers from his invaluable knife. I sat on the dog and held his paws, but quivered even when I kept my head averted. The quills being barbed cannot be withdrawn, but must be pulled through in the same direction in which they entered. The gums, lips, and roof of the mouth were full of little wounds, but the dogs were extremely sagacious and held very still. When the painful operation was over they were very grateful, licking the general’s hand as he praised them for their pluck.

Sometimes, when the weather was moderate, and I rode after the fox-hounds, one of them separated himself from the pack, and came shaking his great, velvet ears and wagging his cumbrous tail beside my horse. The general would call my attention to him, and tell me that it was our latest surgical patient, paying us his bill in gratitude, “which is the exchequer of the poor.”

Among the pack was an old hound that had occasional fits. When he felt the symptoms of an attack he left the kennel at the rear of the house, came round to the front-door, and barked or scratched to get in. My husband knew at once that the dog was going to suffer, and that instinct had taught him to come to us for help. Rover would lie down beside the general until his hour of distress, and then solicit the ever-ready sympathy with his mournful eyes. The general rubbed and cared for him, while the dog writhed and foamed at the mouth. He was always greatly touched to see the old hound, when he began to revive, try to lift the tip of his tail in gratitude.

With the stag-hounds, hunting was so bred in the bone that they sometimes went off by themselves, and even the half-grown puppies followed. I have seen them returning from such a hunt, the one who led the pack holding proudly in his mouth a jack-rabbit.

The wolves in their desperate hunger used to come up on the bluffs almost within a stone’s-throw of our quarters. It was far from pleasant to look out of the window and see them prowling about. Once when the stag-hounds were let out of the kennel for exercise, they flew like the winds over the hills after a coyote. The soldier who took care of them could only follow on foot, as the crust on the snow would not bear the weight of a horse. After a long, cold walk he found the dogs standing over the wolf they had killed. When he had dragged it back to our wood-shed he sent in to ask if the general would come and see what the dogs had done unaided and alone, for he was very proud of them.

As the family all stood talking over the size of the coyote and its fur, I said, triumphantly, “Now, I shall have a robe!” It was enough for them, and they made no end of sport about my planning a robe out of one small skin. After we had all gone into the house, the soldier, who was not accustomed to hear such badgering, went in to Mary, and indignantly exclaimed, “Be jabers, and they’ll not tease her about that long!” After that, during the winter, he walked frequently over the plain with the dogs, and when they had started a trail and run almost out of sight, he patiently followed until he readied the spot where they had brought down the game. Even in that bitter weather he brought in enough foxes, swifts, and coyotes to make me a large robe. When it was made up, I triumphantly placed myself on it, and reminded my family of their teasing, and the time, so lately past, when I had been an object of jest to them.

The weather seemed to grow colder and colder as the winter advanced—from 20° to 30° below zero was ordinary weather. The officers were energetic enough to get up sleighs, even with all the difficulties they had to encounter. There was no lumber at the post except unseasoned cotton-wood. The man who could get a packing-box for the body of his sleigh was a Crœsus. The carpenter cut and sawed the edges into scallops and curves; the rudest bobs were ironed by the company blacksmith; and the huge tongue of an army wagon was attached to the frail egg-shell. The wood-work was painted black, and really the color and shape reminded one of a little baby hearse. Sister Margaret and I disliked sleighing even under favorable circumstances, but that made no sort of difference; we were expected to go twice a day, and try in turn each new sleigh.

My husband found a sketch in some of the illustrated papers, which he thought such a fitting representation of us that he added some lines and drew some applicable features to the picture, and wrote underneath, “Margaret and Libbie enjoying a sleigh-ride!” (two wretched, shivering beings, wrapped in furs, sit with their feet in a tub of ice-water, while a servant rings a dinner-bell over their heads). When we were thus taken out, as a sacrifice we were enveloped in so many wraps we had literally to be carried and dropped into the sleigh, and after hot bricks were adjusted to our feet, we assumed the martyr look that women understand how to take on when persuaded against their will, and off we flew. It made no impression if we were speechless—the dearth of women made the men far from critical. Sometimes we went to the Hart River, which empties into the Missouri, and which we were not afraid to drive over, as it was frozen solid. And yet it should be understood that we preferred to go and be frozen rather than stay at home and be comfortable, for we were a band of friends sharing the same isolation, and each took comfort in contributing to the enjoyment of the rest.

One sort of sleighing we really did enjoy. One of the officers got up a long sleigh, using the bed of an army wagon for the box. He was his own coachman, and stood in front driving an excellent four-in-hand. We all placed ourselves in the straw and robes, and nothing of the whole party was visible except two rows of “tip tilted,” rosy-tinted noses peeping out from under fur caps and gay mufflers. If any one rashly left a seat to play some prank it was never regained. The space closed up instantly, and it was a choice of standing for the rest of the distance, or uncomfortably sitting on the spurs, arctics, or buffalo over-shoes of the others. Another of our number tried driving tandem; and as his horses were very fleet and his sleigh very frail, it was a study from first to last how soon we should gather up the fragments of our scattered selves from the white plain over which we flew at eagle speed.

When the thermometer went down to 45° below zero, the utmost vigilance was exercised to prevent the men from being frozen. The general took off all the sentinels but two, and those were encased in buffalo overcoats and shoes, and required to walk their beat but fifteen minutes at a time. There were no wells or cisterns, and the quartermaster had no means of supplying the post with water, except with a water-wagon that required six mules to haul it around the garrison. The hole in the river through which the water was drawn was cut through five feet of ice. It was simply dreadful on those bitter days to see the poor men whose duty it was to distribute the supply. My husband used to turn away with a shudder from the window when they came in sight, and beg me not to talk of a matter that he was powerless to remedy. The two barrels at the kitchen-door were all that we could have, and on some days the men and wagon could not go around at all. We husbanded every drop, and borrowed from a neighbor, if any neighbor was fortunate enough not to have used all his supply.

CHAPTER XI.
THE BURNING OF OUR QUARTERS.—CARRYING THE MAIL.

We had hardly finished arranging our quarters when, one freezing night, I was awakened by a roaring sound in a chimney that had been defective from the first. Women have such a rooted habit of smelling smoke and sending men on needless investigating trips in the dead of night, that I tried to keep still for a few moments. The sound grew too loud to be mistaken, and I awakened my husband. He ran up-stairs and found the room above us on fire. He called to me to bring him some water, believing he could extinguish it himself. While I hurried after the water, there came such a crash and explosion that my brain seemed to reel from fright. I had no thought but that my husband was killed. Nothing can describe the relief with which I heard his voice calling back to my agonized question as to his safety. His escape was very narrow; the chimney had burst, the whole side of the room was blown out, and he was covered with plaster and surrounded with fallen bricks. The gas from the petroleum paper put on between the plastering and the outer walls to keep out the cold had exploded. The roof had ignited at once, and was blown off with a noise like the report of artillery. The sentinel at the guard-house fired his carbine as an alarm. The general ran to one of the lower windows, and with his powerful voice that he could throw so far called for the guard. Then we hurried to the room occupied by our girl-friend. The plastering falling on her bed from the burning roof was the first hint she had of the danger. It was unsafe for her to stop to gather her clothes, and wrapping a blanket about her we sent her to our sister next door.

In an incredibly short time the men were swarming about the house. The general had buttoned his vest, containing his watch and purse, over his long night-dress, and unconscious of his appearance, gave just as cool orders to the soldiers as if it were at drill. They, also, were perfectly cool, and worked like beavers to remove our things; for with no engine and without water it was useless to try to save the house. The general stood upon the upper landing and forbade them to join him, as it was perilous, the floors being then on fire. He had insisted upon my going out of the house, but I was determined not to do so until he was safe. When I did leave I ran in my night-dress over the snow to our sister’s. The house burned very quickly. Fortunately it was a still, cold night, and there was no wind to spread the flames. Except for this the whole garrison must have been burned.

When the morning came we went to inspect the heap of household belongings that had been carried out on the parade-ground. It was a sorry collection of torn, broken, and marred effects! Most of my clothes were gone. Our poor girl-friend looked down into her trunk, empty except for one tarlatan party gown. I had lost silver and linen, and what laces and finery I had. The only loss I mourned, as it was really irreparable, was a collection of newspaper clippings regarding my husband that I had saved during and since the war. Besides these I lost a little wig that I had worn at a fancy-dress ball, made from the golden rings of curly hair cut from my husband’s head after the war, when he had given up wearing long locks.

The fire served one purpose after all. Before it occurred I had always been a trial to Mary because I cared so little for dress and really owned so few ornaments. When the servants gathered together after that to boast of the possessions of their several mistresses, as is customary with the colored people, who so love display, Mary was armed with an excuse for me. I used to hear of her saying, “You jist orter seed what Miss Libbie had afo’ the fire;” and then she would describe in detail elegant apparel that I had never even thought of having. Long afterwards I heard of the comments of one of our number, who loved the loaves and fishes of this life beyond everything. In vain she accumulated and had the proud satisfaction of out-doing every one in the number of her dresses. Mary managed to slip into her kitchen on some feigned errand, and drawing upon her imagination related how much richer Miss Libbie’s possessions were before the fire. I had a hearty laugh by myself when I heard that the Miss Flora McFlimsey of our circle, worn out with the boasting of the cook, was heard to exclaim, “I wish I might have seen for myself all the gorgeousness described. I am tired to death of hearing about ‘befo’ the fire.’”

The general selected another set of quarters next to his brother’s, and thither removed the remnants of our household goods. He begged me not to go near the house, or attempt to settle, until I had recovered from the fright of the fire and of his imperilled life the night before. We were all busy enough trying to fit our things upon our little friend. Her purse, with abundance to buy a new outfit, was burned, and it would be weeks before she could receive a remittance from home by our slow mails. Next day, as she sat among us in borrowed apparel, several sizes too large, she had a surprise. A huge clothes-basket was handed in at the door, with a note addressed to her, begging her to consider herself, what the garrison had long felt that she was, “the daughter of the regiment.” The basket contained everything that the generous hearts of friends could suggest. Not content with this, another was sent on the next day, with a further supply of things bought in the store at Bismarck. She objected to the acceptance, and tears rose in her eyes at the thoughtfulness; but there were no names signed to the note, so we would not heed remonstrances. Every one came with needles and thimbles, and the scissors flew.

I was too much absorbed in this scheme to ask many questions about the new quarters. When I did inquire, the general put me off by saying that in a few days I should begin to settle. The second evening after the fire he sent for me, and asked if I would come and consult with him about some arrangement of the furniture, as he was too busy to come after me. I started at once, but Mary, ever thoughtful of my appearance, and deep in the mystery that followed, urged me to put on my other gown. I was unwillingly put into it, and went to the new house to find both sets of quarters lighted throughout, and the band playing “Home, Sweet Home.” My husband, meeting me, led me in, and to my utter surprise I found the whole place completely settled, a door cut through into Colonel Tom’s quarters, and the garrison assembled at the general’s invitation for the house-warming. The pantry was full of good things to eat that Mary had prepared for the supper. Every one tried, by merry frolic and dancing, to make me forget the catastrophe, and the general, bubbling over with fun, inspired me to join. Then he told me to what subterfuges he had resorted to get the house ready, and repeated to me again that it was never worth while to “cry over spilled milk.”

The life of the enlisted men was very dull during the cold weather. In the summer they had mounted drill and parades, and an occasional scout, to vary the life. They got very little good out of their horses in the winter. An hour in the morning and another in the afternoon were spent every day in grooming them. The general took me down to the stables sometimes to watch the work. Each horse had the name given to him by his rider printed in home-made letters over his stall. Some of the men were so careful of their horses that they were able to keep them for service during the five years of their enlistment. The daily intercourse of horse and rider quickened the instinct of the brute, so that he seemed half human. Indeed, I have seen an old troop-horse, from whose back a raw recruit had tumbled, go through the rest of the drill as correctly as if mounted by a well-trained soldier. Many of the soldiers love and pet their dumb beasts, and if the supply of grain gives out on a campaign they unhesitatingly steal for them, as a mother would for a starving child.

Beside every stall hung the saddle and equipments of the trooper, and the companies vied with one another in keeping them in perfect condition. Some of the horses’ coats shone like satin under the busy currycomb of an attached master. The captain of a company and his first-sergeant soon discovered the faults of a horse. When the preparations for a campaign began, it was really laughable to hear the ingenious excuses why an apparently sound horse should be exchanged for another from the fresh supply.

In the same way a soldier who was hopelessly worthless was often transferred to another company. The officers who had been the recipient of the undesirable soldier would come to the general to complain. I could not always keep a straight countenance when the injured captain narrated his wrongs. One told of what desperate need he had been in for a tailor. He had been proffered this man with many eulogies by a brother officer, and the final recommendation given which insured the acceptance of this seemingly generous offer was, “He has made clothes for me.” Not until the transfer was effected, and a suit of clothes ruined for the captain, was he told by his would-be liberal friend the whole story, which was, “Oh yes! he made clothes for me, but, I forgot to add, I couldn’t wear them.”

The general sympathized with the impatience of the enlisted men in their dull life, which drove the sergeants to solicit as a privilege the transportation of the mail. For a man of my husband’s temperament it was easy to understand that danger was more endurable than the dead calm of barrack life. The telegraph lines were frequently down, and except for the courage of the sergeants we should have been completely isolated from the outside world. With four mules and the covered body of a government wagon on bobs, they went over a trackless waste of snow for two hundred and fifty miles. Occasionally there were huts that had once been stage stations, where they could stop, but it was deadly perilous for them to leave the telegraph line, no matter through what drifts they were compelled to plunge.

The bewilderment of a snow-storm comes very soon. An officer lying in the hospital, quite crazed from having been lost in attempting to cross a parade-ground only large enough for the regiment in line, was a fearful warning to these venturesome men. If the mail sergeant did not appear when he was due—at the end of two weeks—the general could scarcely restrain his anxiety. He was so concerned for the man’s safety that he kept going to the window and door incessantly. He spoke to me so often of his fears for him that I used to imagine he would, for once, express some of his anxiety when the sergeant finally appeared to report; but military usage was too deeply bred in the bone of both, and the report was made and received with the customary repressed dignity of manner. However, I have seen my husband follow the man to the door, and tell him that he had felt great concern about him, and renew his directions to take every precaution for his safety. How thankful I used to be that I was not hedged in with a soldier’s discipline, but that I could follow the faithful old trooper and tell him how the general had worried about him, and how thankful we all were for his safe return.

It did not take long for the garrison to discover the poor mules, with their tired, drooping heads and wilted ears, dragging the mail-sleigh into the post. Every officer rushed to the adjutant’s office for his mail. It was a great event and the letters were hailed with joy. An orphan, and having no brothers and sisters, I must have been the only one who was contented not to get any. For my world was there. An officer’s wife who could hardly wait for news from her lonely, delicate mother in the East used to say pathetically, realizing the distance that intervened, that no one knew what it was to be married to a husband and a mother at the same time.

As soon as the mail was distributed, the general buried himself with the newspapers. For several days after he agreed with me that an old engraving, called “My Husband,” was a faithful likeness of him at such a time (the picture represented a man sitting in a chair, completely hidden, except his crossed legs and his hands, and clasping an outspread paper). As soon as the contents were devoured, he cut from the illustrated papers comic pictures, and adding to them some doggerel, sent them in to our witty neighbor as illustrating some joke that had transpired against her. With other papers, by a little drawing he transposed the figures and likenesses of some of the officers who had been placed previously in some ludicrous position. Adding marginal comments, he left the pictures uppermost where they were sure to be seen by the persons for whom they were intended, when they came in as usual to look over the papers and magazines in his room. A clever lady in a neighboring garrison, speaking of the arrival of the mail, described how voraciously she seized the new reading matter and closeted herself for hours to read up in advance of the others. She felt that “having exhausted every other topic she must coach up on something new.”

In spite of the great risks and dangers of the mail-carriers, their journeys were accomplished without serious accident. I used to hear occasionally that the sergeant had levied such a heavy tax upon the citizens of Bismarck, when he brought small parcels through for them, that he had quite a little sum of money for himself by spring.

CHAPTER XII.
PERPLEXITIES AND PLEASURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE.

The climate of Dakota was so fine that those who had been poisoned by malaria in the South became perfectly well after a short residence there. Sickness was of rare occurrence, and because of its infrequency it drew forth lavish sympathy. In the autumn a beautiful little girl, the daughter of the sutler, was brought into the garrison dying with diphtheria. There was no law, like the city ordinance, compelling a warning placard to be placed on the door, and it would have been of no avail in keeping her friends away. When I begged the heart-broken mother to turn from the last breath of her idol, it seemed to me her lot was too hard for human endurance. Every sorrow seemed much worse out there, where we were so unaccustomed to suffering.

As I looked at the little waxen body prepared for burial, lying so like a pretty flower, I did not wonder at the mother’s grief and despair. She was a thousand miles from Eastern friends; her husband was absent on business, and she among strangers. At another time, when a young mother was caring for her newly-born babe, the little toddling brother was unfortunately exposed to the cold, and fell violently ill with pneumonia. Every lady came daily to help care for him, and at last the officers’ repeatedly proffered services were accepted for night nursing. I remember watching and admiring the tenderness of a handsome, dashing young fellow as he walked the floor with the feverish little sufferer, or rocked him patiently until dawn. And when I saw him often afterwards gliding about in the dance, or riding beside some pretty girl, I used to think to myself that I could tell his sweetheart something good about him. We were all like one family—every one was so quick to sympathize, so ready to act if trouble came.

After the trains had been taken off, and winter had fairly set in, the young mother, whom we all loved, was in despair about clothing for her little ones. We had reached a land where there were no seamstresses, no ready-made clothing, and nothing suitable for children. Money did no good, though our friend had abundance of that, but busy fingers were needed. The ladies quietly arranged, as a surprise, a sewing-bee. We impressed our brother Tom into our service, and taught him to use the sewing-machine. A laughing crowd dropped scissors and thimbles at parade-time and followed to the door to watch him hurry on his belt and sabre and take his place—the quintessence then of everything military and manly. A roomful of busy women, cutting, basting, making button-holes, and joining together little garments, soon had a passable outfit for the brave mother’s little ones, and even a gown for her own sweet self. I do not remember ever seeing anything quite so Dutchy and cumbersome, however, as those little children dressed in the cobbled-out woollen clothes our ignorant fingers had fashioned.

A woman on the frontier is so cherished and appreciated, because she has the courage to live out there, that there is nothing that is not done for her if she be gracious and courteous. In twenty little ways the officers spoiled us: they never allowed us to wait on ourselves, to open or shut a door, draw up our own chair, or to do any little service that they could perform for us. If we ran to the next house for a chat, with a shawl thrown over our heads, we rarely got a chance to return alone, but with this undignified head-covering were formally brought back to our door! I wonder if it will seem that we were foolishly petted if I reveal that our husbands buttoned our shoes, wrapped us up if we went out, warmed our clothes before the fire, poured the water for our bath out of the heavy pitcher, and studied to do innumerable little services that a maid would have done for us in the States.

I don’t think it made us helpless, however. In our turn we watched every chance we could to anticipate their wants. We did a hundred things we would not have remembered to do had not the quickly passing time brought nearer each day those hours of separation when we would have no one to do for. I am sure I never saw more tender men than the officers. One learned to conceal the fact that one was ailing or fatigued, for it made them so anxious. The eyes of sister Margaret’s husband come to me now, full of intense suffering for his wife, as she silently read her home letters telling of our mother Custer’s failing strength. She suppressed her weeping until they had retired and she believed him asleep. She found her mistake when his gentle hands stole softly to her cheeks to feel if they were moistened with tears.

So seldom did we hear of an officer’s unkindness to his wife, that a very old legend used to be revived if a reference to anything of the kind was needed. Before the war some officer wished to measure the distance of a day’s march, and having no odometer elected his wife to that office. The length of the revolution of a wheel was taken, a white handkerchief tied to a spoke, and the madam was made to count the rotations all day long. The story seldom failed to fire the blood of the officers when it was told. They agreed that nothing but a long life among Indians, and having the treatment of the squaw before him, would cause a man to act with such brutality.

Domestic care sat very lightly on me. Nothing seemed to annoy my husband more than to find me in the kitchen. He determinedly opposed it for years, and begged me to make a promise that I would never go there for more than a moment. We had such excellent servants that my presence was unnecessary most of the time, but even in the intervals when our fare was wretched he submitted uncomplainingly rather than that I should be wearied. A great portion of the time my life was so rough that he knew it taxed me to the utmost, and I never forgot to be grateful that I was spared domestic care in garrison. We had so much company that, though I enjoyed it, I sometimes grew weary. When the winter came and there was little to do officially, my husband made every preparation for our receptions: ordered the supplies, planned the refreshment, and directed the servants. The consequence was that I sometimes had as enjoyable a time as if I had been entertained at some one else’s house. To prove how much pleasure I had, I recall a speech that the family kept among a collection of my faux pas. They overheard me saying to some of our guests, “Don’t go home, we are having such a good time.” Afterwards the tormenting home circle asked me if it would not have been in a little better taste to let the guests say that!

We had such a number of my husband’s family in garrison that it required an effort occasionally to prevent our being absorbed in one another. A younger brother came on from Michigan to visit us, and our sister Margaret’s husband had a sister and brother at the post. Sometimes we found that nine of us were on one side of the room deeply interested in conversation. Something would rouse us to a sense of our selfishness, and I was the one sent off to look out the quiet ones at the hop who needed entertaining. If I chanced to be struggling to teach new steps in dancing to feet unaccustomed to anything but march or drill, or strove to animate the one whom all pronounced a bore, the family never failed to note it. They played every sly trick they could to disconcert and tease me. I did not submit tamely. As soon as I could, I made my way to them, and by threats and intimidations scattered them to their duty!

At the hops the officers waited long and patiently for the women to dance with them; sometimes the first waltz they could get during the evening would not come before midnight. I think it would have been very hard for me to have kept a level head with all the attention and delightful flattery which the ordinary manners of officers convey, if I had not remembered how we ladies were always in the minority. The question whether one was old or young, pretty or plain, never seemed to arise with them. I have seen them solicit the honor of taking a grandmamma to drive, and even to ride as gallantly as if she were young and fair. No men discover beauty and youth more quickly, but the deference they feel for all women is always apparent.

It seemed very strange to me that with all the value that is set on the presence of the women of an officer’s family at the frontier posts, the book of army regulations makes no provision for them, but in fact ignores them entirely! It enters into such minute detail in its instructions, even giving the number of hours that bean-soup should boil, that it would be natural to suppose that a paragraph or two might be wasted on an officer’s wife! The servants and the company laundresses are mentioned as being entitled to quarters and rations and to the services of the surgeon. If an officer’s wife falls ill she cannot claim the attention of the doctor, though it is almost unnecessary to say that she has it through his most urgent courtesy. I have even known a surgeon, who from some official difficulty was not on friendly terms with an officer, go personally and solicit the privilege of prescribing through the illness of his wife, whom he knew but slightly.

The officers used sportively to look up the rules in the army regulations for camp followers, and read them out to us as they would the riot act! In the event of any question being raised regarding our privileges, we women really came under no other head in the book which is the sole authority for our army. If we put down an emphatic foot, declaring that we were going to take some decisive step to which they were justly opposed as involving our safety, perhaps, we would be at once reminded, in a laughingly exultant manner, of the provision of the law. The regulations provide that the commanding officer has complete control over all camp followers, with power to put them off the reservation or detain them as he chooses. Nevertheless, though army women have no visible thrones or sceptres, nor any acknowledged rights according to military law, I never knew such queens as they, or saw more willing subjects than they govern.

CHAPTER XIII.
A “STRONG HEART” DANCE!

The Indian scouts employed by our government and living at our post belonged to a tribe called the Arickarees. This tribe was small, and though not strong enough in numbers to attack the more powerful Sioux, there was implacable enmity between them, and a constant desire for revenge. During the preceding summer a band of Sioux came to Fort Lincoln, and drew the scouts belonging to the infantry garrison out of their quarters by some cunningly devised pretext. No sooner did they appear than they were fired upon by the Sioux. They fought all day, and finally the Rees succeeded in driving their enemies away. All this took place right at the post, where the firing could be seen from the windows. It was not known how many Sioux were killed, for all tribes make extraordinary exertions to carry their dead from the field. Four only were left. After some months the Sioux, for some reason best known to themselves, sent word that they were coming for a treaty. The Rees prepared to receive them with what they termed a “Strong Heart” dance. A message inviting the garrison was sent by them, through the interpreter, and we hailed with relief the variety in our existence this spectacle would afford. Indian life was still a novelty to us, for we had not been with any peaceable tribe before coming into Dakota. We stowed ourselves away in long sleighs which took us to the quarters of the scouts. Their buildings were of logs, and were long and low in construction. Around the walls on the inside were bunks on which were marks showing the quarters assigned to each family. When the outer door closed upon us we could scarcely breathe; the atmosphere was stifling, and loaded with the odor of smoked meat, tanned skins, and killikinick tobacco. The place was lighted by burning logs in a large fireplace, and the deep shadows threw into high-relief the figures that came into the glare of the fire, and produced effects from which Doré might have found material for a most powerful work.

Before the ceremonies began, we women went round the place to see the papooses in their mothers’ arms, as they sat in the bunks or on the earthen floor. Each mother held her baby up for our inspection, with as much pride as if there had never been a little one on earth before. The squaws were not permitted to come near the charmed circle in front of the fire, where the mimic orchestra beat their drums; they were allowed to sing at a distance, and joined in the low monotone of the musicians. At regular intervals, as if keeping time, they jerked out a nasal twanging note which was emphasized by the coarse voices of the warriors. The dancers were naked, except for the customary covering over their loins. They had attached to their belts beads and metal ornaments. Some had so fastened to their girdles the feathers from the tail of the wild turkey, that they stood up straight as the savages bent over in the evolutions of the dance. One leg and arm would be painted bright vermilion or blue, and the other a vivid green, with cabalistic characters drawn on them in black. The faces were hideous, being painted in all colors. A few had necklaces of bears’ claws, on which they set great value. These hung over the bronze shoulders, the claws pointing into the brown skin of their chests. One, evidently poorer than the rest, had a rudely cut shirt made out of an old ham-bag, on which the trade-mark and name of the manufacturing firm figured conspicuously as his sole decoration. Another, equally poor, wore only the covering over his hips, while suspended by a cord from his neck was a huge tin toy horse. From the scalp-lock of some there was a strip of cloth falling to the ground, on which silver disks made of coins were fastened at close intervals.

In the plait of hair falling to their waists we saw sticks crossed and running through the braid. The interpreter explained that these represented “coups.” Our attention was arrested at once by a little four-year-old boy, who, from time to time during the evening, was brought to the circle by his mother, and left to make his little whirling gyrations around the ring of the dancers. It was explained to us that he had won his right to join in the festivities of the tribe when the fight took place the summer before, to settle which this treaty was planned. Of the four Sioux left on the battle-field that day, one, though mortally wounded, was not yet dead when the retreat took place. A Ree squaw, knowing that it would count her child “a coup” if he put another wound in the already dying man, sent him out and incited the child to plunge a knife into the wounded warrior. As a reward he was given the privilege of joining in all celebrations, and the right to wear an eagle feather standing straight from the scalp-lock of his tiny head. We saw the mother’s eyes gleam with pride as she watched this miniature warrior admitted among the mature and experienced braves. All the dancers rotated around together for a time, their bodies always bent, and they howled as they moved. In the shadowy gloom, only momentarily made brilliant by the flashes of light from the fire, these grotesque, crouching figures were wild enough for gnomes. Only occasionally, where there was a large mixture of white blood, did we see a well-developed figure. The legs and arms of Indians are almost invariably thin. None of them ever do any manual labor to produce muscle, and their bones are decidedly conspicuous.

We were surprised to observe that though dancing in so small a space, and weaving in and out in countless figures, without an apparent effort to avoid collisions, they never interfered or caught their brandished weapons in the ornaments of one another’s toggery. When a warrior wished to speak, he made some sign to the others. They then sat down around him, and the music ceased. He began with a recital of his achievements—Indians never fail to recapitulate these as a preface to each speech. Sometimes the speaker’s career was illustrated, and a cotton sheet was unfolded on which were painted a number of primitive figures. He gradually grew more and more earnest; his dull eyes glared as he pointed to the scalps he had taken, which were even then dangling from his belt. Finally the warrior began to give presents, and to receive them in return, as is the custom on those occasions. If he gave a pony, he declared it by throwing down a stick on which were cut notches that signified the gift to the recipient.

After several had told their “coups,” for so they designate their deeds of prowess, one bounded with great energy into the circle. He narrated with spirit how he had revenged the death of two of their band by killing the murderer at the last fight at the post. Before any one realized it, an old squaw pushed her way violently into the open space, threw down a roll of calico at his feet, and flung off her leggings and blanket as presents in her gratitude, for it was of her husband and son that he spoke. As she was about to complete the gift by removing her last garment, the interpreter, in consideration for us, hurried her out to her bunk in the darkness, and we saw her no more. Last of all an old Sioux, wrapped in a black mourning blanket, tottered into the circle, and silence settled down on all. He spoke of his son who had been in the fight, and had fallen bravely, but said that before he was killed he had made many Rees “bite the dust,” as he then figuratively expressed it. Excited by the story of the courage of his offspring, he tottered back to his place, but his pride soon succumbed to his greater sorrow; he buried his head in his blanket when he sank down to his seat. Hardly had he ceased, before a young Ree leaped into the midst of the warriors, threw off his blanket, and with flashing eye plunged into a hurried enumeration of his achievements, to prove his courage in days past. Then, striding up to the bereaved father, he said in exultant, imperious tones, “Boast no longer of the successes of your dead, I who stand here am he who killed him!” The father did not even raise his eyes. The Ree called out to the listening warriors, “Will he not fight me? I stand ready.” The old warrior remained unmoved, even under the insolent words of the aggressor. Many years of an eventful life had made him too well versed in, and too subservient to the laws of Indian warfare, not to know that a “Strong Heart” dance bound all in inviolable honor not to break the temporary peace; but he knew that once meeting each other on the open plain there were no restrictions.

When we left the unearthly music, the gloom, and the barbaric sights, and breathed pure air again, it seemed as if we had escaped from pandemonium.

One morning soon after that we heard singing, and found that the squaws were surging down from their quarters nearly a mile distant. We had not received a hint of the honor to be conferred, and were mystified when they all halted in front of our house. They had come to give us a dance. It was an unusual occurrence, for the women rarely take part in any but the most menial services. They were headed by Mrs. Long Back, the wife of the chief of the scouts. She was distinguished as the leader by a tall dress-hat that had been the property of some society man when he wore civilian dress in the States. They began going around after each other in a jogging, lumbering sort of movement, and singing a humdrum song in a minor key. Much of the finery we had seen at the genuine war-dance was borrowed from the warriors for this occasion. It was festooned over the figures of the women already well covered with blankets, and the weight was not calculated to add materially to their grace. The ranking lady had a sabre which her chief had received as a present, and this she waved over the others in command. One woman carried her six-weeks’-old papoose on her back, and its little, lolling head rolled from side to side as the mother trotted round and round after the others.

During the dance one of the officers’ colored servants rushed out, and in his excitement almost ran his head into the charmed precincts. An infuriated squaw, to whom all this mummery was the gravest and most momentous of concerns, flew at him, brandishing a tomahawk over his head. He had no need to cry, “O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!” for his manner of vanishing was little short of actual evaporation into air. Neither his master nor any one else saw him for twenty-four hours afterwards.

When the women stopped their circumvolutions for want of breath, we appeared on the porch and made signs of thanks. They received them with placid self-satisfaction, but the more substantial recognition of the general’s thanks, in the shape of a beef, they acknowledged more warmly.

CHAPTER XIV.
GARRISON LIFE.

There were about forty in our garrison circle, and as we were very harmonious we spent nearly every evening together. I think it is the general belief that the peace of an army post depends very much upon the example set by the commanding officer. My husband, in the six years previous, had made it very clear, in a quiet way, that he would much prefer that there should be no conversation detrimental to others in his quarters. It required no effort for him to refrain from talking about his neighbors, but it was a great deprivation to me occasionally. Once in a while, when some one had brought down wrath upon his or her head by doing something deserving of censure, the whole garrison was voluble in its denunciation; and if I plunged into the subject also and gave my opinion, I soon noticed my husband grow silent and finally slip away. I was not long in finding an excuse to follow him and ask what I had done. Of course I knew him too well not to divine that I had hurt him in some manner. Then he would make a renewed appeal to me beginning by an unanswerable plea, “if you wish to please me,” and imploring me not to join in discussions concerning any one. He used to assure me that in his heart he believed me superior to such things. In vain I disclaimed being of that exalted order of females, and declared that it required great self-denial not to join in a gossip. The discussion ended by his desiring me to use him as a safety-valve if I must criticise others. From motives of policy alone, if actuated by no higher incentive, it seemed wise to suppress one’s ebullitions of anger. In the States it is possible to seek new friends if the old ones become tiresome and exasperating, but once in a post like ours, so far removed, there is no one else to whom one can turn. We never went away on leave of absence, and heard ladies in civil life say emphatically that they did not like some person they knew, and “never would,” without a start of terror. I forgot that their lives were not confined to the small precincts of a territorial post, where such avowed enmity is disastrous.

I had very little opportunity to know much of official matters; they were not talked about at home. Instinct guided me always in detecting the general’s enemies, and when I found them out, a struggle began between us as to my manner of treating them. My husband urged that it would embarrass him if others found out that I had surmised anything regarding official affairs. He wished social relations to be kept distinct, and he could not endure to see me show dislike to any one who did not like him. I argued in reply that I felt myself dishonest if I even spoke to one whom I hated. The contest ended by his appealing to my good-sense, arguing that as the wife of the commanding officer I belonged to every one, and in our house I should be hospitable upon principle. As every one visited us, there was no escape for me, but I do not like to think now of having welcomed any one from whom I inwardly recoiled.

I was not let off on such occasions with any formal shake of the hand. My husband watched me, and if I was not sufficiently cordial he gave me, afterwards, in our bedroom, a burlesque imitation of my manner. I could not help laughing, even when annoyed, to see him caricature me by advancing coldly, extending the tips of his fingers, and bowing loftily to some imaginary guest. His raillery, added to my wish to please him, had the effect of making me shake hands so vigorously that I came near erring the other way and being too demonstrative, and thus giving the impression that I was the best friend of some one I really dreaded.

As I was in the tent during so many summers, and almost constantly in my husband’s library in our winter quarters, I naturally learned something of what was transpiring. I soon found, however, that it would do no good if I asked questions in the hope of gaining further information. As to curiosity ever being one of my conspicuous faults, I do not remember, but I do recollect most distinctly how completely I was taken aback by an occurrence which took place a short time after we were married. I had asked some idle question about official matters, and was promptly informed in a grave manner, though with a mischievous twinkle of the eye, that whatever information I wanted could be had by application to the adjutant-general. This was the stereotyped form of endorsement on papers sent up to the regimental adjutant asking for information. One incident of many comes to me now, proving how little I knew of anything but what pertained to our own home circle. The wife of an officer once treated me with marked coldness. I was unaware of having hurt her in any way, and at once took my grievance to that source where I found sympathy for the smallest woe. My husband pondered a moment, and then remembered that the husband of my friend and he had had some slight official difficulty, and the lady thinking I knew of it was taking her revenge on me.

When I first entered army life I used to wonder what it meant when I heard officers say, in a perfectly serious voice, “Mrs. —— commands her husband’s company.” It was my good-fortune not to encounter any such female grenadiers. A circumstance occurred which made me retire early from any attempt to assume the slightest authority. One of the inexhaustible jokes that the officers never permitted me to forget was an occurrence that happened soon after the general took command of the 7th Cavalry. A soldier had deserted, and had stolen a large sum of money from one of the lieutenants. My sympathy was so aroused for the officer that I urged him to lose no time in pursuing the man to the nearest town, whither he was known to have gone. In my interest and zeal I assured the officer that I knew the general would be willing, and he need not wait to apply for leave through the adjutant’s office. I even hurried him away. When the general came in I ran to him with my story, expecting his sympathy, and that he would endorse all that I had done. On the contrary, he quietly assured me that he commanded the regiment, and that he would like me to make it known to the lieutenant that he must apply through the proper channels for leave of absence. Thereupon I ate a large piece of humble pie, but was relieved to find that the officer had shown more sense than I, and had not accepted my proferred leave, but had prudently waited to write out his application. Years afterwards, when my husband told me what a source of pride it was to him that others had realized how little I knew about official affairs, and assured me that my curiosity was less than that of any woman he had ever known, I took little credit to myself. It would have been strange, after the drilling of military life, if I had not attained some progress.

The general planned every military action with so much secrecy that we were left to divine as best we could what certain preliminary movements meant. One morning, when it was too cold for anything but important duty, without any explanations he started off with a company of cavalry and several wagons. As they crossed the river on the ice, we surmised that he was going to Bismarck. It seemed that the general had been suspicious that the granaries were being robbed, and finally a citizen was caught driving off a loaded wagon of oats from the reservation in broad daylight. This was about as high-handed an instance of thieving as the general had encountered, and he quietly set to work to find out the accomplices. In a little while it was ascertained that the robbers had concealed their plunder in a vacant store in the principal street of Bismarck.

The general determined to go himself directly to the town, thinking that he could do quickly and without opposition what another might find difficult. The better class of citizens honored him too highly to oppose his plan of action, even though it was unprecedented for the military to enter a town on such an errand. The general knew the exact place at which to halt, and drew the company up in line in front of the door. He demanded the key, and directed the men to transfer the grain to the wagons outside. Without a protest, or an exchange of words even, the troops marched out of the town as quietly as they had entered. This ended the grain thefts.