Part 10

The Captain was as stolid and unconcerned as a Red Indian through every change of weather. He had nicknamed me “Kim” from Kipling’s tale, and after me he had named a large black horse which he always rode. It was an excellent animal with a very rapid walk which proved the bane of my existence. My pony, “Pickpocket,” had no pace that corresponded, and to adapt himself was forced to travel at a most infernal jiggle that was not only exceedingly wearing but shook me round so that the rain permeated in all sorts of crevices which might reasonably have been expected to prove water-tight. With the pride of a boy on his second trip, I could not bring myself to own up to my discomfort. If I had, the Captain would have instantly changed his pace; but it seemed a soft and un-Western admission to make, so I suffered in external silence, while inwardly heaping every insult I could think of upon the Captain’s mount. We were travelling long distances, so the gait was rarely changed unless I made some excuse to loiter behind, and then walked my pony in slow and solitary comfort until the Captain was almost out of sight, and it was time to press into a lope which comfortably and far too rapidly once more put me even with him.

The Captain was a silent companion; he would ride along hour after hour, chewing a long black cigar, in a silence broken only by verses he would hum to himself. There was one that went on interminably, beginning:

“I wonder if ever a cowboy Will be seen in those days long to come; I wonder if ever an Indian Will be seen in that far bye-and-bye.”

Every now and then some butte would suggest a reminiscence of the early days, and a few skilfully directed questions would lure him into a chain of anecdotes of the already vanished border-life. He was continually coming out with a quotation from some author with whose writings I had never thought him acquainted. Fishing in a Black Hills stream, I heard him mutter:

“So you heard the left fork of the Yuba As you stood on the banks of the Po.”

He had read much of Kipling’s prose and poetry, but what he most often quoted were the lines to Fighting Bob Evans.

In his house in Deadwood he had a good library, the sort of one which made you feel that the books had been selected to read and enjoy, and not bought by the yard like window-curtains, or any other furnishings thought necessary for a house. Mrs. Bullock was president of the “Women’s Literary Club,” and I remember father being much impressed with the work that she was doing.

As I have said before, the Captain was a man whom changing conditions could not throw to one side. He would anticipate the changes, and himself take the lead in them, adapting himself to the new conditions; you could count upon finding him on top. He was very proud of the fact that he had brought the first alfalfa to the State, and showed me his land near Belle Fourche, where he had planted the original crop. Its success was immediate. He said that he could not claim the credit of having introduced potatoes, but an old friend of his was entitled to the honor, and he delighted in telling the circumstances. The Captain’s friend, whom we can call Judge Jones, for I’ve forgotten his name, had opened a trading-post in what was at that time the wild territory of Dakota. The Indians were distinctly hostile, and at any good opportunity were ready to raid the posts, murdering the factors and looting the trading goods. In the judge’s territory there was one particularly ugly customer, half Indian and half negro, known as Nigger Bill. The judge was much interested in the success of his adventure in potatoes, and the following was one of the letters he received from his factor, as Seth Bullock used to quote it to me:

DEAR JUDGE,

This is to tell you all is well here and I hope is same with you. Nigger Bill came to the door of the stockade to-day and said “I am going to get in.” I said “Nigger Bill you will not get in.” Nigger Bill said “I will get in.” I shot Nigger Bill. He is dead. The potatoes is doing fine.

Although realizing to the full that the change was inevitable and, of course, to the best interests of the country, and naturally taking much pride in the progress his State was making, the Captain could not help at times feeling a little melancholy over the departed days when there was no wire in the country, and one could ride where one listed. He wrote me in 1911: “The part of South Dakota which you knew has all been covered with the shacks of homesteaders, from Belle Fourche to Medora, and from the Cheyenne agency to the Creek Where the Old Woman Died.” The old times had gone, never to return, and although the change was an advance, it closed an existence that could never be forgotten or relived by those who had taken part in it.

The Captain gave me very sound advice when I was trying to make up my mind whether or not to go to college. I was at the time going through the period of impatience that comes to so many boys when they feel that they are losing valuable time, during which they should be starting in to make their way in the world. I had talked it over with the Captain during one of the summer trips, and soon afterward he wrote me:

Ride the old studies with spurs. I don’t like the idea of your going out to engage in business until you have gone through Harvard. You will have plenty of time after you have accomplished this to tackle the world. Take my advice, my boy, and don’t think of it. A man without a college education nowadays is badly handicapped. If he has had the opportunity to go through college and does not take advantage of it, he goes through life with a regret that becomes more intensified as he gets older. Life is a very serious proposition if we would live it well.

I went through college and I have often realized since how excellent this advice was, and marvelled not a little at the many-sidedness of a frontiersman who could see that particular situation so clearly.

The year before I went with my father to Africa, R. H. Munro Ferguson and myself joined the Captain in South Dakota for a prairie-chicken hunt. We were to shoot in the vicinity of the Cheyenne Indian reservation, and the Captain took us through the reservation to show us how the Indian question was being handled. The court was excellently run, but what impressed us most was the judge’s name, for he was called Judge No Heart. Some of our hunting companions rejoiced in equally unusual names. There were Spotted Rabbit, No Flesh, Yellow Owl, and High Hawk, not to forget Spotted Horses, whose prolific wife was known as Mrs. Drops-Two-at-a-Time. We had with us another man named Dave Snowball, who looked and talked just like a Southern darky. As a matter of fact, he was half negro and half Indian. In the old days negro slaves not infrequently escaped and joined the Indians. I went to see Dave’s father. There was no mistaking him for what he was, but when I spoke to him he would answer me in Sioux and the only English words I could extract from him were “No speak English.” He may have had some hazy idea that if he talked English some one would arrest him and send him back to his old masters, although they had probably been dead for thirty or forty years. Possibly living so long among the Sioux, he had genuinely forgotten the language of his childhood.

High Hawk and Oliver Black Hawk were old “hostiles.” So was Red Bear. We came upon him moving house. The tepee had just been dismantled, and the support poles were being secured to a violently objecting pony. A few weeks later when we were on the train going East, Frederic Remington joined us. He was returning from Montana, and upon hearing that we had been on the Cheyenne reservation he asked if we had run into old Red Bear, who had once saved his life. He told us that many years before he had been picked up by a party of hostiles, and they had determined to give him short shrift, when Red Bear, with whom he had previously struck a friendship, turned up, and successfully interceded with his captors. One reminiscence led to another, and we were soon almost as grateful to Red Bear for having opened such a store as Remington had been for having his life spared. Frederic Remington was a born raconteur, and pointed his stories with a bluff, homely philosophy, redolent of the plains and the sage-brush.

The night before we left the Indians the Captain called a council. All the old “hostiles” and many of the younger generation gathered. The peace-pipes circulated. We had brought with us from New York a quantity of German porcelain pipes to trade with the Indians. Among them was one monster with a bowl that must have held from an eighth to a quarter of a pound of tobacco. The Indians ordinarily smoke “kinnikinick,” which is chopped-up willow bark. It is mild and gives a pleasant, aromatic smoke. The tobacco which we had was a coarse, strong shag. We filled the huge pipe with it, and, lighting it, passed it round among the silent, solemn figures grouped about the fire. The change was as instantaneous as it was unpremeditated. The first “brave” drew deeply and inhaled a few strong puffs; with a choking splutter he handed the pipe to his nearest companion. The scene was repeated, and as each Indian, heedless of the fate of his comrades, inhaled the smoke of the strong shag, he would break out coughing, until the pipe had completed the circuit and the entire group was coughing in unison. Order was restored and willow bark substituted for tobacco, with satisfactory results. Then we each tried our hand at speaking. One by one the Indians took up the thread, grunting out their words between puffs. The firelight rose and fell, lighting up the shrouded shapes. When my turn came I spoke through an interpreter. Coached by the Captain as to what were their most lamentable failings--those that most frequently were the means of his making their acquaintance--I gave a learned discourse upon the evils of rustling ponies, and the pleasant life that lay before those who abstained from doing so. Grunts of approval, how sincere I know not, were the gratifying reply to my efforts. The powwow broke up with a substantial feast of barbecued sheep, and next morning we left our nomadic hosts to continue their losing fight to maintain their hereditary form of existence, hemmed in by an ever-encroaching white man’s civilization.

Near the reservation we came upon two old outlaw buffaloes, last survivors of the great herds that not so many years previously had roamed these plains, providing food and clothing for the Indians until wiped out by the ruthless white man. These two bulls, living on because they were too old and tough for any one to bother about, were the last survivors left in freedom. A few days later we were shown by Scottie Phillips over his herd. He had many pure breeds but more hybrids, and the latter looked the healthier. Scottie had done a valuable work in preserving these buffalo. He was a squaw-man, and his pleasant Indian wife gave us excellent buffalo-berry preserves that she had put up.

Scottie’s ranch typified the end of both buffalo and Indian. Before a generation is past the buffalo will survive only in the traces of it left by crossing with cattle; and the same fate eventually awaits the Indian. No matter how wise be the course followed in governing the remnants of the Indian race, it can only be a question of time before their individuality sinks and they are absorbed.

The spring following this expedition I set off with father for Africa. The Captain took a great deal of interest in the plans for the trip. A week before we sailed he wrote:

I send you to-day by American Express the best gun I know of for you to carry when in Africa. It is a single action Colts 38 on a heavy frame. It is a business weapon, always reliable, and will shoot where you hold it. When loaded, carry it on the safety, or first cock of the hammer.

Seth Bullock was a hero-worshipper and father was his great hero. It would have made no difference what father did or said, the Captain would have been unshakably convinced without going into the matter at all that father was justified. There is an old adage that runs: “Any one can have friends that stand by him when he’s right; what you want is friends that stand by you when you’re wrong.” Seth Bullock, had occasion ever demanded it, would have been one of the latter.

In the Cuban War he was unable to get into the Rough Riders, and so joined a cowboy regiment which was never fortunate enough to get over to Cuba, but suffered all its casualties--and there were plenty of them--from typhoid fever, in a camp somewhere in the South. He was made a sort of honorary member of the Rough Riders, and when there were informal reunions held in Washington he was counted upon to take part in them. He was a favorite with every one, from the White House ushers to the French Ambassador. As an honorary member of the Tennis Cabinet he was present at the farewell dinner held in the White House three days before father left the presidency. A bronze cougar by Proctor had been selected as a parting gift, and it was concealed under a mass of flowers in the centre of the table. The Captain had been chosen to make the presentation speech, and when he got up and started fumbling with flowers to disclose the cougar father could not make out what had happened.

The Captain, as he said himself, was a poor hand at saying good-by. He was in New York shortly before we sailed for Africa, but wrote: “I must leave here to-day for Sioux Falls; then again I am a mollycoddle when it comes to bidding good-by; can always easier write good-by than speak it.”

His gloomy forebodings about the Brazilian trip were well justified. He was writing me to South America:

I was glad to hear you will be with your father. I have been uneasy about this trip of his, but now that I know you are along I will be better satisfied. I don’t think much of that country you are to explore as a health resort, and there are no folks like home folks when one is sick.

The Captain made up his mind that if his regiment had failed to get into the Cuban War the same thing would not happen in the case of another war. In July, 1916, when the Mexican situation seemed even more acute than usual, I heard from the Captain:

If we have war with Mexico you and I will have to go. I am daily in receipt of application from the best riders in the country. Tell the Colonel I have carried out his plan for the forming of a regiment, and within fifteen days from getting word from him, will have a regiment for his division that will meet with his approval. You are to have a captaincy to start with. I don’t think Wilson will fight without he is convinced it will aid in his election. He is like Artemus Ward--willing to sacrifice his wife’s relations on the altar of his country.