LITMIR.BIZ

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person. In previous travels in Arkansas I had eaten bear steak, and it was not very uncommon to eat warm chicken in my Southern home; but this was the first instance in my experi- ence of practical lessons in the culinary art, and that of cooking warm beef, awaited demonstration. I remembered how the deft hand of the colored cook unceremoniously wrung the neck of a chicken, dipped it in hot water to remove its feathers quickly, dismembered it, rolled the parts in batter, and trans- ferred all to the frying pan; but warm beef, never! Our frying pans were soon in evidence and the experiment began. It reminded me of the days of my childhood when I often witnessed my grand- father's darkies cooking turtles of their own cap- ture. The piece of turtle would tremble during the process of cooking, and even after they were pro- nounced "dun" and placed upon the cabin table before them. Children could never be prevailed upon to touch them. They seemed so uncanny to our eyes that we could not banish the thought that, after all, they must be alive.

      I essayed to partake of my portion of cow at the auspicious moment, for the thought sprang up that meat at the stage of fresh, very fresh, must be preferable to the canned or salt meat of which one grows weary when limited to its nourishment during a long journey. I made progress, possibly too rapid progress, with my experiment, for I soon lost it,

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      with all else in the shape of food, and promptly banished the thought of ever again being success- fully tempted to eat any very fresh meat. This mental resolve did not end my discomfort, for I had to go to bed, and in an ambulance too, as if I had been naughty, and at a time when I had put forth my very best efforts to do the thing that seemed right, and in which all concerned had concurred. I had accordingly to munch crackers when the internal equilibrium was restored, and with intermittent sleep patiently await the morning camp-fire for my next refreshment.

      "Only two more camp-fires to build" before reaching our final destination, ' and nothing of inci- dent worthy of notice."

      The poet's words, "to live and move and have our being," were translated into the most literal prose, and reduced, mathematically, to its "lowest terms," and its narrowest limits, "one road, one object to attain, and one small party on the way."

      To reach our goal in safety was the single desire of our hearts and the concentrated thought of our minds, and so we dragged along until we reached the beautiful Lake De Smedt, on the last day of the journey. This lake * was named for the celebrated Catholic missionary priest first sent to the Flathead, Crow, and other Indians of the northwest, and whose

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      * Captain Palmer says (see page 515, vol. 1, "Coutant's History of Wyoming" ), " Lake Smedt is so strongly impreg- nated with alkali that an egg or potato will not sink if thrown in the water. Not many miles from the lake is a flowing oil well. A scheme might be inaugurated to tunnel under the lake,

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      successful and honored labors eventually took him to the country now known as Wyoming. He visited the Powder River country, and if he had no other monument than that erected at St. Louis in 1873, this lake will be a perpetual reminder of his useful life among the Indians more than twenty years before the period of which I am writing. He pub- lished two volumes, "Letters and Sketches" and "Oregon Missions, " which contain most valuable information of western occupation and his efforts to Christianize the savages of the far west. There still remain in Wyoming a few old residents who remem- ber his beneficent work and testify to the personal merit of "Black Robe," as he was called by the Indians upon his first arrival to labor in their behalf.

       There are two traditions regarding the name of "Crazy Woman's Fork." One is that a poor de- mented squaw once lived near this branch of Powder River, in a miserable hut, and died there. Another is, that a party once travelling in that locality, fol- lowing as they supposed the footsteps of Father De Smedt, were attacked by Indians and one of the men was killed and mutilated in their characteristic

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      set the tunnel on fire and boil the whole body of alkali water and oil into soap."

      But, more seriously, we were informed after reaching our destination that the officers of the fort, soon after their arrival, found the north shore of the lake a mass of excoriæ, as from an iron furnace, and that the water was so intensely alkaline that no fishes could live in it, and that they could not force their horses into its waters when trying to collect some brant which fell on the surface during a hunting trip.

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      manner, and that his wife became insane, wandered away, and was never heard from. The latter tra- dition is most readily credited by people now living in that vicinity as the more reasonable one, from the fact, as I was recently informed, that such a con- dition as insanity is unknown among squaws, and if insanity is sometimes attributed to the red man, it is due to the white man's firewater.

      But other associations connected with the place are of a historical and authentic nature.

      On July 20, 1866, about two months before we encamped on the same spot, there occurred a des- perate fight with a band of Indians, which, beyond official report, has never been in print until now, after the lapse of forty-two years, when the story is given me in detail by the only survivor of that day's fight, Mr. S. S. Peters, of Omaha. It reads as follows:

      "Our detachment had left Fort Laramie about the 10 of July, and after an exhausting march of eight or nine days reached Fort Reno, on Powder River, and went into camp just outside the stockade. Lieutenant A. H. Wands was in command of the party, and with him were Lieutenants James H. Bradley, P. M. Skinner, George H. Templeton, and Napoleon H. Daniels. All of these officers and men had seen stirring service during the Civil War in various volunteer regiments, and some of the offi- cers had been promoted to the regular army for gallantry during the war. There was with the detachment also an ex-Captain Marr, of a Missouri Regiment, and two civilians. Chaplain David Wright and Assistant Surgeon Heintz joined the party at Fort Reno, and were to proceed with it to the new post at the forks of the Pineys in the Big Horn Mountain country, which was then known as Fort Carrington, in honor of the Colonel commanding the Eighteenth Infantry. The name of Fort Phil. Kearney was given to the post afterward.

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      "The detachment remained in camp a day at Fort Reno, and even then it was with considerable reluctance that Captain Joseph L. Proctor, commanding the post, consented for the party to proceed on to Fort Carrington, with so few numbers, as the Indians were known to be very bad, and it was extremely dangerous for small parties to venture away from the immediate protection of the fort, especially toward the west. Red Cloud was the leader of the hostile Indians and had given out the word that he would massacre every party of white soldiers that dared cross Crazy Woman. He and his Minneconjou Sioux felt that they had been driven to bay by the encroachments of the whites into that country, and with their hereditary enemies on the further west, the Crows, the rapid encroachment of the white soldiers from the east and south had driven him and his band of Sioux to desperation.

      "Lieutenant Wands was determined, however, to proceed, and orders were given to prepare for a very early start in the morning of July 20, 1806, from Fort Reno. The outfit consisted all told of twenty-six individuals, including two women, one the wife of Lieutenant Wands and the other the wife of an enlisted man. Five wagons, two ambulances, and four riding horses, one a handsome stallion belonging to Captain Marr, completed the cavalcade.

      "The following night was excessively warm and sleep was almost out of the question, and, with all night howling of the great drove of timber wolves and coyotes hovering about the camp, very few of the detachment got any sleep at all.

      "Lieutenant Daniels, an Indianian, was especially restless and came over to where I was on guard and walked the beat with me. He said that he had a presentiment that something was going to happen to him very soon and he did not know how to account for it. All efforts to discourage

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