CHAPTER IV
UP AGAINST THE RED MAN
In mv career on the plains as a "cow puncher," as
mayor of a frontier town, and as superintendent of a mine in the early
days of Leadville, Colorado, I have occasionally been where I felt like
shying my "caster into the ring"; but of all my experiences I never
ached to go on "the war path" as I did when on the Niobrara River in
Nebraska, years ago, I saw one of my best friends lying dead, scalped
by a band of bloodthirsty Indians. Back in the seventies I was
interested in a cattle ranch in that locality. The only railroad across
the plains at the time was the Union Pacific. The nearest station of
the railroad to our ranch was Ogallala. About fifty miles farther up
the river from the ranch in which I was interested was that of the Moorehead boys, of
Dunlap, Iowa. We often visited. Some of my stock had strayed away, and
in hunting for them it took us in sight of the Moorehead corral. As we
came on to the divide from where we alwavs caught sight of the
Moorehead ranch, we saw a cloud of smoke instead. As we approached the
place we saw it was entirely consumed. About three hundred yards from
the corral we came upon one of Moorehead's helpers lying on the ground
shot dead and scalped. Near the corral lay the dead body of Frank
Moorehead. We knew it was the work of Indians. It seemed that Little
Wolf's band of Cheyenne Indians had broken away from their reservation
in the Indian Territory and had left a track of blood and ashes through
the States of Kansas and Nebraska, and it was these devils who had done
the work.
Possibly the novice is not aware of the fact that the scalp taken by
the Indians is that part of the head where the hair makes a crown. Some
have more than one crown. Moorehead must have had two, as he was
scalped in two places. Over the grave of his dead brother Frank, Jim
Moorehead took an oath of revenge. Whether he ever got revenge or not I do not know, but I do know that Little Wolf is dead.
The Niobrara country in those days was an awful lonesome place. Our
nearest town was Ogallala, one hundred and fifty miles away. There we had to go for our provisions
and mail. Reports were made every two weeks to the owners of the cattle
on the range which necessitated a ride of one hundred and fifty miles
and back. I made the ride once and "once was enough for him." Loping
seventy-five miles between daylight and twilight is quite a jaunt, but
to get up the next morning and go another seventy-five, and then go
back over the route in another two days is about all the average
citizen can stand. There was a ranchman's corral just half way to
Ogallala, where we stopped over night and changed horses. It was either
to make the seventy-five miles to that corral in a day or camp out, and
I never heard of any of the boys taking the camping-out end of the
proposition. God help them if they did! Physicians tell us that there
is nothing more beneficial than horseback riding, but they didn't mean
three hundred miles in four days, with the chances of being chased by
Indians.
The hardest ride I ever made in my fifteen years in the saddle was a
forty-two-mile gallop from Six Mile Grove, in Iowa, to Council Bluffs,
and made under a terrible nervous strain. The wife of my nearest
neighbor, while feeding a cane mill, caught her right arm in the
machinery and crushed it above the elbovr before they could stop the
machine. I was present when the sickening accident occurred. :Mounting
the fleetest horse in my friend's stable, a mustang, I soon reached the
divide along which led the old Mormon trail to Council Bluffs. This
trail was the principal road
traveled by the Mormons across Iowa on their exodus from Nauvoo,
Illinois, to Salt Lake City. The horse seemed to realize what had
occurred, and for the first twenty miles needed no urging, but on the
last stretch I often applied the spurs and whip. As a guide to those
who for years afterward followed the trail, the Mormons sowed sunflower
seeds along it, and the Mormon trail ever after was marked by tall
sunflowers. The wind would whirl them
over the road, and I was constantly dodging them, and occasionally I
would get a swipe, but I made the forty-two miles in two and
three-quarter hours, but it was the last trip that horse ever made. The
exertion was too much for him, and I left him in Council Bluffs to die.
Fortunately, the doctor was at home, and fifteen minutes after my
arrival we were going back over the trail with a span of horses that
for fleetness would have been the envy of any horseman.
While I was attending a meeting of the Masonic lodge of which I was a
member, at the little frontier town of Dunlap, Iowa, we were called to
defend the town from a threatened attack from the Omaha tribe of
Indians. The Indians had been camped for a couple of weeks by the Boyer
River, about a mile from town. The chief was Yellow Smoke. He was a
great gambler, and a successful one at that. He often visited the
saloons of the town for a game of cards and to see what show there was
to get his hands on some firewater. Yellow Smoke, unfortunately,
sat down one night in a game with some toughs, who purposely got him
drunk to rob him. They stole his money and an elegant fur robe, and in
the melee Yellow Smoke was killed. The toughs fled the town. As soon as
the tribe heard of Yellow Smoke's death they came for the body and
demanded the men who killed him. The body they took away and buried,
and sent word to the town authorities that they wanted the men who had
killed their chief. There were four hundred bucks in the Indian camp,
armed to the teeth, and as Dunlap had only about live hundred
iuhabitauts all told, things began to look a little dubious. The
authorities sent back word, which was the truth, that the men who
killed Yellow Smoke were not residents of the place and had fled from
the town. The Indians wouldn't believe it, and demanded the men at once
or they would come after them. We all knew what the result of that
expedition would be. A committee, of which I was a member, from the
lodge, visited the Indian camp to try and appease them, and assure them
that the men had left. At the suggestion of one of the members, we
dressed in our Masonic regalia. What a fortunate suggestion! To the
astonishment of all of us, the Indians on our approach greeted us with
Masonic signs, and assured us they would believe what we told them. Our
statement proved satisfactory. The Indians having obtained Masonic
signs in some unaccountable manner, undoubtedly saved Dunlap from being
wiped off the map; that is, it looked that way. But there is one thing
certain; from what
I knew of the caliber of Dunlap citizens and the out-of-town members of
the lodge who were present at that particular time, the Omaha tribe of
Indians would have been somewhat reduced before the wiping-out process
was completed.
In all my experience with the noble red man the most trying moment I
ever passed through was when I sat at my desk in a grain house at
Woodbine, Iowa, with my back to six stalwart Indians while closing a transaction with them in which
from all appearances I was taking advantage of their ignorance. On my
election to the mayoralty of Woodbine I bought a half interest in a
grain business. About half of the time I spent at the office of the
grain house. We had several government corn contracts to fill. Western
Iowa at that time was one of the great corn belts of the West.
The contracts necessitated the corn being shelled and sacked. The
improved corn sheller with its necessary equipment was a little too rich for our bank account, so all
the corn shelled at the warehouse was done by hand shellers. Two good
men could shell and sack one hundred bushels a day. We paid five cents
per bushel. For the benefit
of the reader who never saw a hand corn sheller, I would state that it
is a small iron contrivance which is put in motion by a person turning
a crank and another feeding the machine one ear at a time, the corn
coming out of one hole and the cobs another. Every once in a while the
men would stop to sack the accumulated corn and clear away the
cobs.
An island on the Boyer River about half a mile from Woodbine was a
favorite Indian camping ground, and it was seldom that Indians were not
in camp there. They daily visited the stores of the town to trade skins
of animals they had trapped along the Boyer for grub and knickknacks.
The path from the island passed our warehouse. Nailed to the corner of
the building was a sign, ''Corn shellers wanted." On my arrival one
morning at the office of the warehouse I saw six Indians running a corn
sheller which my partner had put to work. One of our men was trying the
hopeless task of instructing the noble red man the trick of running a
corn sheller. It seems they had seen the sign "Corn shellers wanted''
and had made application. I would give right now one hundred dollars if
I had a photograph of those six Indians running that corn sheller, and
I can
assure the reader he would see it reproduced.
As I stated, one of our men was trying to show them how to run the
machine, but he finally gave up the job. Instead of running two
machines, the whole six were, I might say, standing around one. In
feeding a hand corn sheller you put one ear of
coru in immediately after another, but in spite of my man's directions,
the Indian who was feeding the machine would not put in another ear
until he saw the cob of the preceding one come out. One Indian was
handing corn to the fellow who was feeding, another turning the crank,
another
picking up the lonely cob as it fell to the floor and carrying it over
to the cob pile, another holding a sack and another with a broom and
scoop shovel gathering up the kernels of corn as they came from the
machine. The fellow who was turning the crank soon saw he had the
hardest job,
so there was a continual argument going on as to whose turn it was next
to turn the crank. After they had worked about four hours, they entered
the office, greeting me with the word "backsheesh," which means, in
English, money. I knew
they were ready to quit and be paid off.
I sent one of the men to measure the corn, and he returned with the
announcement that they had shelled the immense amount of two bushels,
which at five cents a bushel came to ten cents. For the moment I didn't
know what to do. With six Indians, all over six feet, standing at my
back, who had worked hard according to their theory for nearly half a
day, it required a lot of nerve on my part to hand them a lonely
ten-cent piece. I never looked up as I handed one of them the coin. I
expected to hear a warwhoop and feel my scalp leaving my head and
several knives enter my anatomy. I could realize the feelings of the
criminal in that horrible moment as he sits in the electric chair
between the completion of the strapping and the turning on of the
electric current. After firing a little Indian dialect at each other,
they filed out of the office. As they crossed the threshold two gentlemen who had been sitting in the
office and who were aware of what had taken place, burst into laughter.
The Indians hearing the laughter stopped, and greatly to my relief,
grimly smiled. The fact of the matter was my partner had put up a job
on me and was in a nearby store playing "seven up'' while watching
developments at the warehouse.
Chapter 8 -- Chapter 10
