squaw, whose walnut-shell face and general decrepitude would class her as somewhere about one hundred and fifty; she had evidently been abandoned by the tribe as a piece of worthless bric-a-brac, whose only claim to consideration was because of her mummified condition. She was instantaneously dubbed the Witch of Endor, and various sketches made of her exemplary ugliness by the artists among the soldiers. Also in her vicinity was found a small, tailless dog, whose lack of caudal ornament was ascribed to the butcher knife of some Indian; she also was adopted by one of the soldiers and subsequently was accouched of a litter of four puppies, and, marvelous to relate, these also were devoid of any means of expressing their sentiments by wagging their tails for they, also, had no tails. The Witch of Endor was about scared to death, but speedily realized that her capture by the troops was a piece of paradisaical fortune, for she received consideration and care that she had never known in the heyday of her youth and comeliness (if she ever had any of the latter quality, which was stretching the imagination to the breaking point), and from an abject, despondent hag she became quite chipper and bossy; so readily does the feminine character adapt itself to a fortunate environment. One of the soldiers became a sort of foster-father to the ancient lady, and proclaimed that he could converse with her. As she was ignorant of English, and he was obtuse of Cheyenne, this statement aroused interest, which was further added to by his assertion that he talked with her in the Gipsy, or Romany, dialect. This could not be disproved, and much linguistic discussion among the ethnologists ensued, and many learned investigations resulted, with the result, after some time, that the soldier was declared an unmitigated fraud and a would-be bunko steering philologist -but he had a soft time pottering around the ancient vestal while his fraud lasted. And she was old, but not senile.

The route pursued was much in the same general direction as that of General Custer in 1868, that culminated in the battle of the Washita on November 28th, an account whereof was published in this magazine under the title of "The Sub

Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Seventh U. S. Cavalry, Brevet Major-General U. S. A.

From photograph in the War Department Collection

jugation of Black Kettle," and of which contest some of the principal participants are illustrated in this article, many of the Indians of the Washita turmoil also being the objective of the Miles' expedition, known in War Department annals as the Indian Territory Expedition.

Many skirmishes and engagements were had with desultory bodies of Indians, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Arapahoes and Quahadas, or Staked Plain Comanches, the most notable culmination of these being on August 30, 1874, when some six hundred warriors were energetically encountered at a point some twelve miles north of Red River (that after pursuing its tortuous course ultimately empties into the Mississippi near Marysville, La.), and opposite the mouth of the Tule. General George W. Baird (a most estimable officer and magnificent gentleman, now deceased), thus tersely described the action:

"August 30th was the day, and the "breaks" of the Red River, some thirteen

miles from its bed, the place where the fight opened. Suddenly, from behind bluff and bush, as if they sprang from the bosom of the earth fully armed, the hostiles came tearing down upon Baldwin's scouts and Indians, with the 'crack, crack' of their rifles and the whoop of their war-cries. But Baldwin was the man for the place, and Miles knew it; his sufficient discretion never had a touch of hesitancy or timidity, and he was fitly seconded by brave old Fall Leaf, of the Delawares. Meantime, Colonel Biddle, under the immediate command of General Miles, deployed his battalion of cavalry forward at the run; Colonel Compton, giving rein to his horses, swung his battalion out on the right. Lieutenant Pope's artillery, with infantry support, came rapidly up in the center, and there began a running fight over thirteen miles of sun-baked earth, glowing with a furnace heat, gashed in gullies and deep ravines by the flood-like rains which at times prevail there. Whenever the Indians made a stand, the troops were hurled upon them and the fight which, if it had opened timidly, would have been a stoutly contested affair, soon became a rout and a chase. Colonel Biddle threw forward Captain Chaffee (now Lieutenant-General Adna

R. Chaffee, U. S. Army, retired, resident at Los Angeles) with his troop as skirmishers, who there made his famous battle-speech: 'Forward! and if any man is killed, I'll make him a corporal!'

"Down through the jagged ravines the troops pursued across a half mile of sand, where at times (during the winter rains) a river flows, up the right bank and into the Valley of the Tule, a branch of the Red River where a burning camp, abandoned utensils, and a trail leading up a precipitous cliff, told of the hasty flight of the Indians. The long chase before the fight, the rapid pursuit after through the intolerable heat of sun and earth, and the absence of water, made it necessary to call a halt. Men and animals were famishing -some men drank the blood of a buffalo, and all the water found in Red River was a small pool of saturated gypsum and alkali, rendered indescribably vile from having been for a long time a buffalo wallow. (Many of the soldiers, to obviate drinking at this pool, dug holes in the sandy bed of the whilom river and thus found water, but this was also impregnated with alkali and gypsum, but devoid of buffalo urine; it, however, although affording moisture, had the cathartic effect of croton oil.) With infinite

labor, the command, after resting, followed the trail over which Pope (now Colonel and Assistant QuartermasterGeneral) by devoting the night to it, had dragged up his Gatlings and so climbed out of the valley of the Tule and followed the Indian trail for miles out on the Llano. It became evident that no pursuit could be successful without supplies, and that before a train could be brought through the ravines and breaks of the valley to the table-land on the right bank of the Red River, the Indians could get beyond pursuit. Hence a recall was sounded."

During the progress of this movement, some two hundred and fifty Kiowa and Comanche warriors broke away from their agency and went on the war-path, subsequently surrounding and attacking Genera! Miles' supply train, which was under escort of Captain Wyllys Lyman for four days near the Wichita, from September 9th to the 13th, and where scouts Amos Chapman (called Amos by the Indians before that, afterward Tam-e-yukhtah, or Cut-off Leg, losing a leg in the surround) and William "Billy" Dixon, called Has-ta, or Long Hair, and four soldiers were held at bay in a buffalo

wallow also for four days. The stout resistance made to the Indians and the approach of a battalion of the Eighth Cavalry, under Major William R. Price, raised the siege and the supply train was enabled to proceed to the command on the Washita, whose famished condition it fortuitously alleviated. Meanwhile the command had had very short rations, that they pieced out with horse-meat and acorns from the scrub oak. Acorns are alleged to be nutritious food; from the personal experience of the writer it can be conscientiously said that they are most abominably distasteful and puckerylike an unripe persimmon-and that horse-meat has a tendency to stick in one's throat going to the stomach.

Scouting parties were continuously kept in the field around the Canadian, Washita and Sweetwater, and from Oasis Creek along the Canadian and Wolf Creek to the Palo Duro and Adobe Walls, but no Indians were found in the vicinity.

On October 10th, Major Compton made a scout toward Mustang Creek and Palo Duro and intercepted and engaged a body of Indians that were afterward driven one hundred miles through the sand-hills and to the Canadian, where, October 18th,

Ben Clark, scout, guide and interpreterMi-e No-to-wah (Red Neck.)

William Dixon

they were dispersed. A detachment of cavalry under Captain Curwen B. McLellan, Sixth Cavalry, and another under First Lieutenant William M. Wallace, of the same regiment (now Brigadier-General, U. S. Army, retired), were sent out scouting; during these scouts, the capability of Ben Clark and "Billy" Dixon was especially demonstrated and valuable to the commands. The prowess of Ben Clark (Mi-e No-to-wah, Red Neck), was specifically mentioned in "The Subjugation of Black Kettle," heretofore alluded as published in this magazine, and it is impracticable to sufficiently eulogize the modesty, efficiency and admirable marksmanship of this most excellent scout and trailer.

Again the general command took the field over the Staked Plain and amid the most bitter winter weather; the streams were frozen so hard that the loaded wagons and artillery crossed on the ice without difficulty; "sun dogs" were a steady phenomenon in the sky; picket pins would turn so that they resembled fish-hooks when they were driven into the marble earth; the only way tent pins could be used to hold up tent was by pecking and picking a slanting hole in the ground, into which the tent pins were afterward put and tamped; northers seemed to be unceasing, and "Black Jack" (LieutenantColonel John W. Davidson of the Tenth (colored) cavalry had twenty-seven horses frozen dead one night on the picket line, though the line was stretched in a ravine where it was supposed there would be adequate protection from the bitter winds. A negro soldier was termed Mok-e-ti veho nut-okh-e, Buffalo soldiers, by the Indians, and for a long time the negro warrior was an object of mystery and fear!

A tangible evidence was obtained of an exploit of Colonel Ranald S. MacKenzie with the Fourth Cavalry during the scouting of the Staked Plain, and near Canoncito Blanco (an affluent of Red River), when he had attacked a band of Indians there and captured the pony herd. The unkilled Indians skedaddled for the safety of their unpunctured skins cold weather, the aroma from the numerand the pony herd was shot. Despite the ous carcasses of the ponies was as pungent to the smell and as offensive thereto as