He was
an excellent fellow, open, warm-hearted and intelligent.
Jim Gurney,
the short man, was a Boston sailor, who had come in a trading vessel
to California, and taken the fancy to return across the continent.
The journey had already made him an expert "mountain man," and he
presented the extraordinary phenomenon of a sailor who understood how
to manage a horse. The third of our visitors named Ellis, was a
Missourian, who had come out with a party of Oregon emigrants, but
having got as far as Bridge's Fort, he had fallen home-sick, or as
Jim averred, love-sick - and Ellis was just the man to be balked in a
love adventure. He thought proper to join the California men and
return homeward in their company.
They now requested that they might unite with our party, and make the
journey to the settlements in company with us. We readily assented,
for we liked the appearance of the first two men, and were very glad
to gain so efficient a re-enforcement. We told them to meet us on
the next evening at a spot on the river side, about six miles below
the fort. Having smoked a pipe together, our new allies left us, and
we lay down to sleep.
CHAPTER XXII
TETE ROUGE, THE VOLUNTEER
The next morning, having directed Delorier to repair with his cart to
the place of meeting, we came again to the fort to make some
arrangements for the journey. After completing these we sat down
under a sort of perch, to smoke with some Cheyenne Indians whom we
found there. In a few minutes we saw an extraordinary little figure
approach us in a military dress. He had a small, round countenance,
garnished about the eyes with the kind of wrinkles commonly known as
crow's feet and surrounded by an abundant crop of red curls, with a
little cap resting on the top of them. Altogether, he had the look
of a man more conversant with mint juleps and oyster suppers than
with the hardships of prairie service. He came up to us and
entreated that we would take him home to the settlements, saying that
unless he went with us he should have to stay all winter at the fort.
We liked our petitioner's appearance so little that we excused
ourselves from complying with his request. At this he begged us so
hard to take pity on him, looked so disconsolate, and told so
lamentable a story that at last we consented, though not without many
misgivings.
The rugged Anglo-Saxon of our new recruit's real name proved utterly
unmanageable on the lips of our French attendants, and Henry
Chatillon, after various abortive attempts to pronounce it, one day
coolly christened him Tete Rouge, in honor of his red curls. He had
at different times been clerk of a Mississippi steamboat, and agent
in a trading establishment at Nauvoo, besides filling various other
capacities, in all of which he had seen much more of "life" than was
good for him. In the spring, thinking that a summer's campaign would
be an agreeable recreation, he had joined a company of St. Louis
volunteers.
"There were three of us," said Tete Rouge, "me and Bill Stevens and
John Hopkins. We thought we would just go out with the army, and
when we had conquered the country, we would get discharged and take
our pay, you know, and go down to Mexico. They say there is plenty
of fun going on there. Then we could go back to New Orleans by way
of Vera Cruz."
But Tete Rouge, like many a stouter volunteer, had reckoned without
his host. Fighting Mexicans was a less amusing occupation than he
had supposed, and his pleasure trip was disagreeably interrupted by
brain fever, which attacked him when about halfway to Bent's Fort.
He jolted along through the rest of the journey in a baggage wagon.
When they came to the fort he was taken out and left there, together
with the rest of the sick. Bent's Fort does not supply the best
accommodations for an invalid. Tete Rouge's sick chamber was a
little mud room, where he and a companion attacked by the same
disease were laid together, with nothing but a buffalo robe between
them and the ground. The assistant surgeon's deputy visited them
once a day and brought them each a huge dose of calomel, the only
medicine, according to his surviving victim, which he was acquainted
with.
Tete Rouge woke one morning, and turning to his companion, saw his
eyes fixed upon the beams above with the glassy stare of a dead man.
At this the unfortunate volunteer lost his senses outright. In spite
of the doctor, however, he eventually recovered; though between the
brain fever and the calomel, his mind, originally none of the
strongest, was so much shaken that it had not quite recovered its
balance when we came to the fort. In spite of the poor fellow's
tragic story, there was something so ludicrous in his appearance, and
the whimsical contrast between his military dress and his most
unmilitary demeanor, that we could not help smiling at them. We
asked him if he had a gun. He said they had taken it from him during
his illness, and he had not seen it since; "but perhaps," he
observed, looking at me with a beseeching air, "you will lend me one
of your big pistols if we should meet with any Indians." I next
inquired if he had a horse; he declared he had a magnificent one, and
at Shaw's request a Mexican led him in for inspection. He exhibited
the outline of a good horse, but his eyes were sunk in the sockets,
and every one of his ribs could be counted. There were certain marks
too about his shoulders, which could be accounted for by the
circumstance, that during Tete Rouge's illness, his companions had
seized upon the insulted charger, and harnessed him to a cannon along
with the draft horses.
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