On the Indian Trail | Page 3

morning and find them missing."
This was rather startling news and caused a good deal of excitement in
our camp.
The speakers were some scouts from the United States army, who were
making a hurried trip from the head waters of the Missouri where the
troops had gone to quell some Indian disturbance. They were now on
their way to Saint Paul with dispatches for Washington.
Each night of our journey we had, in true western style hobbled our
horses and left them to roam about and feed on the luxuriant grasses.
This hobbling is merely the tying of the forefeet loosely together with
soft leather thongs so that the animal in moving has to lift up both
forefeet at once. Its movements being thus necessarily slow, there is no
roaming very far from the camp. Having had no fear of danger, we had
been very careless, leaving everything unguarded.
The terrible Sioux massacres a few years before in these very regions,
were now being forgotten. It is true that as we journeyed, the ruins of
the destroyed, and in many places, not yet rebuilt homesteads of the
settlers, were vivid reminders of those dreadful frontier wars, when
over nine hundred white people lost their lives. The Indians were now

however far to the north and west of us, so that we had no fears as we
leisurely moved along. Hence, it was somewhat startling when these
picturesquely garbed scouts halted in our midst, and warned us to have
a guard over our horses; telling us, that, the most notorious band of
horse thieves was in the neighbourhood, and was rumoured to have
heard that there was a party with some magnificent horses in the prairie
country, and that doubtless, even now, they were on the lookout for us
upon some of the trails.
After a short halt for a hurried meal, our bronzed well-armed visitors
left us. The last we saw of them was as they galloped away southward
on the trail.
Immediately a council was called, when it was decided to move on to
the vicinity of Clearwater, and there remain until all the final
preparations for our long trip were completed. Our horses were turned
loose and hobbled during the day, but were not allowed to stray very
far from the camp. Watchful eyes were ever upon them, and also
scanning the prairies for suspicious intruders. Before sundown they
were all gathered in and securely fastened in a large barn that stood out
upon the prairie, the sole building left of a large farmstead: all the other
buildings, including the dwelling house, had been burned during the
Indian wars. No survivors or relatives had as yet come to claim the
deserted place, and so the rich prairie grasses had almost covered with
their green verdure the spot where the destroyed buildings once stood;
and now all that remained to tell of former prosperity was this solitary
old barn.
The men of our party were appointed to watch the barn during the night
and protect the horses against all intruders. Two well armed persons
were thought a sufficient guard for each of the eight or ten nights that
we remained in that vicinity. One night a young man of our party and I
were appointed to watch. He most thoroughly equipped himself with
several varieties of weapons, resolved to be prepared for any
emergency. I trusted to a quick-firing breech-loading rifle.
We gathered in the horses from the prairies, and were leading them
toward the barn when we met the leader of our party, a man past middle

life, most of whose years had been spent among the Indians, and in the
great west.
Looking at us who were to be the guards of the horses that night, he
said, with a sneer:
"Queer guards are you! I have some young Indians that could steal any
horse in that crowd to-night from under your very nose."
Stung by the sneers of this man, for it was not the first time that he had
tried to wound, I replied with perhaps too much emphasis:
"Mr -- I have the best horse in the company, and I will give him to you,
if either you, or any Indian living, can steal him out of that barn
between sundown and sunrise."
My comrade and I carefully fastened our horses along one side of the
barn where they could stand comfortably, or lie down on some old
prairie hay during the night. Then we examined the barn. At one end
were the usual large double doors sufficiently wide and high to admit
of the entrance of a wagon loaded with hay or sheaves of grain. At the
other end was a small door which we securely fastened on the inside.
We then carefully examined