We are to remain with General and Mrs. Phillips several days, while
our own house is being made habitable, and in the meantime our trunks
and boxes will come, also the colored cook. I have not missed my
dresses very much - there has been so much else to think about. There
is a little store just outside the post that is named "Post Trader's,"
where many useful things are kept, and we have just been there to
purchase some really nice furniture that an officer left to be sold
when he was retired last spring. We got only enough to make ourselves
comfortable during the winter, for it seems to be the general belief
here that these companies of infantry will be ordered to Camp Supply,
Indian Territory, in the spring. It must be a most dreadful
place - with old log houses built in the hot sand hills, and surrounded
by almost every tribe of hostile Indians.
It may not be possible for me to write again for several days, as I
will be very busy getting settled in the house. I must get things
arranged just as soon as I can, so I will be able to go out on
horseback with Faye and Lieutenant Baldwin.
FORT LYON, COLORADO TERRITORY,
October, 1871.
WHEN a very small girl, I was told many wonderful tales about a grand
Indian chief called Red Jacket, by my great-grandmother, who, you will
remember, saw him a number of times when she, also, was a small girl.
And since then - almost all my life - I have wanted to see with my very
own eyes an Indian - a real noble red man - dressed in beautiful skins
embroidered with beads, and on his head long, waving feathers.
Well, I have seen an Indian - a number of Indians - but they were not
Red Jackets, neither were they noble red men. They were simply, and
only, painted, dirty, and nauseous-smelling savages! Mrs. Phillips
says that Indians are all alike - that when you have seen one you have
seen all. And she must know, for she has lived on the frontier a long
time, and has seen many Indians of many tribes.
We went to Las Animas yesterday, Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Cole, and I, to
do a little shopping. There are several small stores in the
half-Mexican village, where curious little things from Mexico can
often be found, if one does not mind poking about underneath the trash
and dirt that is everywhere. While we were in the largest of these
shops, ten or twelve Indians dashed up to the door on their ponies,
and four of them, slipping down, came in the store and passed on
quickly to the counter farthest back, where the ammunition is kept. As
they came toward us in their imperious way, never once looking to the
right or to the left, they seemed like giants, and to increase in size
and numbers with every step.
Their coming was so sudden we did not have a chance to get out of
their way, and it so happened that Mrs. Phillips and I were in their
line of march, and when the one in the lead got to us, we were pushed
aside with such impatient force that we both fell over on the counter.
The others passed on just the same, however, and if we had fallen to
the floor, I presume they would have stepped over us, and otherwise
been oblivious to our existence. This was my introduction to an
Indian - the noble red man!
As soon as they got to the counter they demanded powder, balls, and
percussion caps, and as these things were given them, they were
stuffed down their muzzle-loading rifles, and what could not be rammed
down the barrels was put in greasy skin bags and hidden under their
blankets. I saw one test the sharp edge of a long, wicked-looking
knife, and then it, also, disappeared under his blanket. All this time
the other Indians were on their ponies in front, watching every move
that was being made around them.
There was only the one small door to the little adobe shop, and into
this an Indian had ridden his piebald pony; its forefeet were up a
step on the sill and its head and shoulders were in the room, which
made it quite impossible for us three frightened women to run out in
the street. So we got back of a counter, and, as Mrs. Phillips
expressed it, "midway between the devil and the deep sea." There
certainly could be no mistake about the "devil" side of it!
It was an awful situation to be in, and one to terrify anybody. We
were actually prisoners - penned in with all those savages, who were
evidently in an ugly mood, with quantities of ammunition within their
reach, and only two white men to protect us. Even the few small
windows had iron bars across. They could have killed every one of us,
and ridden far away before anyone in the sleepy town found it out.
Well, when those inside had been given, or had helped themselves to,
whatever they wanted, out they all marched again, quickly and
silently, just as they had come in. They instantly mounted their
ponies, and all rode down the street and out of sight at race speed,
some leaning so far over on their little beasts that one could hardly
see the Indian at all. The pony that was ridden into the store door
was without a bridle, and was guided by a long strip of buffalo skin
which was fastened around his lower jaw by a slipknot. It is amazing
to see how tractable the Indians can make their ponies with only that
one rein.
