LITMIR.BIZ

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did they usually got the worst of it.

      Cheyenne at that time was a typical frontier town. Gambling houses, saloons and dance halls were open continuously, night and day. Unlucky indeed was the tenderfoot who fell into their snare. I soon secured transportation with a mule-train for Deadwood. There were thirty-three of us in the party. The wagons were heavily loaded with freight and the trail was in frightful condition; we ofttimes were compelled to walk.

      I had bought a heavy pair of boots for the trip, but the sticky alkali mud made them so heavy that I soon cut off the tops. The next thing, I put my Winchester rifle and revolver in the wagon and then trudged along the best I could. The Sioux Indians were on the warpath and it was dangerous to get far away from the wagon train. Almost every freighter we met warned us against Red Canyon. The stage drivers reported “hold ups” and murders by organized bands of road agents. This kept us on the alert. At night there was a detail of eight, to divide up the night in standing guard. These men were selected from the most experienced plainsmen, of whom there were quite a number with us.

      We were eight days out from Cheyenne, and several inches of snow had fallen during the night, but the sun rose clear on the biting cold of the morning. Suddenly we heard shots ahead. “Indians! Indians!” shouted one driver to another and then the wagons were quickly formed in a circle, the mules being unhitched and brought to the center of the circle.

      Then for the first time I saw the hideous forms of a band of half-naked savages mounted on their ponies in the distance. They were galloping in a circle around us, yelling their war cry, “Hi-yi, Hip-yi, yi.” They fell from their horses before the deadly aim of our men; their bullets came like the angry hum of hornets about our heads. Their numbers increased from over the foothills, whence they first came. There was a look of desperation upon the faces of our men, such as pen can not describe. James Morgan, who was standing near me in the act of reloading his Winchester, suddenly fell nerveless to the ground. Our captain’s voice rang out now and then, “Be careful there, boys; take good aim before you fire.” Two Indians circled nearer than the others. They were lying on their horses’ necks and firing at us while they were at full gallop. I took aim at one and fired; others must have done so at the same time, for both of them fell from their horses. The fight lasted perhaps an hour, when the Indians withdrew to the hills. One of our men lay dead and two were wounded. I went to where the two Indians had fallen. There lay their forms, cold and stiff in death. The sunbeams were slanting over those snow covered hills. I felt an unaccountable terror as I looked upon them and the crimson snow which their life blood had stained. The raw north wind seemed to pierce my very heart. Night was coming on, and with it all the horrors of uncertainty. I lingered about the spot for some time, with a dreadful fascination mingled with terror. Human life had perished there; human souls had gone into the uncertainty of an unknown beyond. With my brain reeling with excitement of the day and sickened in heart, I returned to our wagons, where some of us walked outside the circle throughout the long watches of that wintry night.

      When the morning sun rose clear above the snow-covered hills, we wrapped the body of the dead teamster in his blankets, and again took up the toilsome drive. The Indians had retired from the fight, probably for the reason that they saw another outfit of wagons coming far down on the plain. The wagons overtook us about 9 o’clock, and after that we had no more trouble with Indians.

      Deadwood, at that time, was like all the frontier mining towns. Saloons, gambling houses and dance halls comprised the business of the place. The gulch was dotted with miners’ cabins and dug-outs. There were a few stores, restaurants, and a bank, but as yet the town had not started a “regular” graveyard. The news of our fight soon spread up and down the gulch and many were the willing hands that offered their services in the burial of James Morgan, our teamster. They dug his grave on the hillside, where afterwards more than five thousand men were buried. They either fell from the deadly pneumonia, or from the bullets of each other in quarrels. When Morgan’s grave was ready to be filled, some one suggested that a chapter from the Bible should be read, but none of us knew where to ask for one, in all Deadwood. Presently a boy said, “I will find one,” and he soon returned with a young lady, who proved to be his sister. He handed the book to our bronzed captain of the mule train; he shook his head. Then someone asked her to read it. When she began, those grim frontiersmen bared their heads, and I fancied I saw the tears gather on more than one bronzed cheek as she knelt upon the frozen clay and offered up a prayer for the dead teamster’s soul.

      The adventurous spirits from far and wide were flocking to this new Eldorado. Wild Bill, the famous scout, Captain Jack Crawford, Texas Jack, and other equally noted scouts and Indian fighters, were there. They sought gold and adventure alike, only for the pleasure it would bring.

      III

      BLACK HILLS DAYS

      I knew Doc Kinnie was not a civil engineer, but he had a plan which looked good, and as I was almost broke, I consented to help him work it. There was a horseshoe bend in the creek which might be drained for placer mining by tunneling through in a narrow place. I talked up the project with some of the boys, and they agreed to dig the tunnel while Doc did the civil engineering. Day after day they dug and blasted rock, while Doc stood around looking wise and encouraging the work. In about a month they were practically through to the other side of the creek. Then they began to call for Doc’s measurements and calculations. “Never mind, you are not through yet,” he would say, “I will let you know when to stop digging.”

      “But we can hear the water rushing,” they would say.

      “You fellows can’t tell anything about it. Sounds of rushing water are always carried a long distance by rocks.”

      “But we are not in the rocks now, we are in a clay bank.”

      “Clay does the same thing; keep on digging.”

      Two days later and there was a commotion at the lower end of the tunnel, when a full head of water came rushing out, bearing with it men, wheelbarrows and shovels. They were nearly drowned, and half frozen, when they scrambled out of the creek. Mad as hornets, they sought their civil engineer, but he was nowhere to be found. The work was done. The prospects were good. When their clothes were dried and they had eaten dinner, they laughed over the incident and pardoned Doc’s miscalculation. With pan and rocker, we now began to work the dry horseshoe bend. Nuggets weighing an ounce, and from that on down to the size of a pin head, were found. The fellows were honest, and made an even divide all around at the cleanup each night. In two months we had taken out over $6,000, and then sold the claim to a placer mining company for $18,000 in cash – $3,000 apiece for the six of us. In two months we were all broke; the money had gone into wildcat speculation in mines. But who cared? Were the hills not full of gold, and all to be had for the digging?

      I joined a party who went thirty miles to the northwest in search of new diggings, and the most that came of it was a laughable incident.

      The great hills rose on every side, frowning darkly in the dense forest of pine. Our voices echoed from rock to rock, as we sat one noon-day about our camp-fire, talking of possible finds, when, bareheaded, with hair disheveled, blood flowing from a wound in his face, and a wildcat held to his chest in close embrace, Mark Witherspoon rushed into camp, yelling at the top of his voice. He was prospecting in a ravine a mile distant, when he saw something waving in the underbrush. Thinking it was mountain grouse, he advanced in hope of getting a shot, when a huge wildcat sprang at his throat.

      As the forepaws of the animal struck his chest, he let fall his gun, and hugged the beast with all his strength to his chest with both arms. The head of the wildcat was drawn slightly backward by the tense pressure of his arms upon its back, while the claws were rendered practically powerless by the close embrace. So quick had been Witherspoon’s action at the start, that he received only a slight wound on the face. In this predicament, he started on a run for the camp. He did not dare to let go and the wildcat wouldn’t, so both held fast. The cat glared up fiercely at him with its yellow eyes, while its hot breath came into his face at every leap. Whenever the vicious beast made the slightest struggle, Witherspoon hugged the tighter, fearing at every step he might stumble and the deadly teeth be fixed in his throat.

      In this manner he reached camp, and it was some seconds before he could make us understand that the cat was terribly alive, and

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