The Scout and Ranger. James Pike
before me, to protect my face from overhanging boughs, and my right on the stock of my "Navy Six," when the sound of rattling rocks was repeated, but I failed to detect the hard ring of horses' hoofs, and I therefore at once concluded an Indian was secreted in the vicinity. I was going rapidly toward the sound, which, in turn, seemed to approach me, when I suddenly stepped over the bank down on the hard rocks, and found myself confronted by a full grown black bear; indeed, I had almost fallen on his head.
I sprang to my feet without delay, and drew my pistol as quickly as possible, but it was too late. Just as I regained my feet, the bear reared upon his hind legs, bellowed piteously with fright, almost turned a back summersault, and then fled precipitately across the shoal, and into the thickets on the opposite bank of the river.
Returning to Sharp, he wanted to know what the "row" was, and I informed him that it was a bear that had made the noise. "Yes, yes," he replied, "but I allowed you had knifed the 'cuss,' from the way he 'bellered.'" This was the first time I thought of my knife, though I then carried a splendid Bowie knife in my belt. The bear had awaked some of the men by his bellowing, but as soon as they discovered that no harm had been done, and that the "varmint" had made his escape, they lazily rolled themselves up in their blankets and slept again.
Sharp was fully aroused by this little incident, but was not at all pleased that I had suffered the "bar" to escape. "You had oughter have knifed him," he insisted; but I was satisfied to let the bear off with Uncle Toby's address to the fly: "go, poor devil, the world is big enough for me and thee."
Old Sharp now seated himself on the ranger's chair, that is, an inverted saddle, and I took a seat beside him, to see what would turn up next, or if our nocturnal friend would pay us another visit. The little affair at once roused in Old Sharp's mind the recollection of many a scene, and hair-breadth escape, and he went on to relate several adventures of his own, with "bar;" our conversation, of course, being carried on in a whisper; and he concluded his narratives with: "but la, boy, the bars a'in't savage in this country like they are furder north; they git plenty to eat in the southern country, but furder north, 'specially in the winter season, when pressed with hunger, they git terribly severe."
By the time he had concluded his stories, I was too sleepy to continue the confab, so I picked out a good place by the side of an old log, where there were plenty of dry leaves, for a bed, and laid down to sleep, although I was some distance from the remainder of the party. I had been asleep some time, when I felt a sense of closeness or warmness, and woke up; and judge my surprise on finding myself entirely covered up with the leaves, and I felt Sharp's hand upon me, at the same moment.
"Come, my boy," said he, "there is danger here."
In an instant I was on my feet, rifle in hand, ready for any emergency. "Injuns?" I asked.
"Look thar," said he, pointing to a dark object, slowly retreating into the shadows of the timber.
Instantly I brought my rifle to bear upon it, when Sharp laid his hand on my shoulder, saying, in a whisper,
"Stop, boy, thar's Injuns about, and ye musn't shoot."
At this moment, the animal turned around, and came back a few paces toward us, stopped with one fore foot partially raised, and glared upon us in an apparently mingled rage and astonishment. Sharp only tightened his grip on my shoulder, and whispered:
"Look him right straight in the eyes, boy."
Instinctively I did as I was ordered; never moving a muscle, but gazing straight into those two great, fiery eyeballs. We stood thus for perhaps twenty seconds, when the animal, putting its foot softly to the ground, stepped half a dozen paces toward us, and stooped upon its hinder legs for a moment, while its tail moved gracefully to and fro. It eyed us thus for perhaps five seconds, then turned itself and again retreated into the depths of the forest, looking back as it went, until it got a considerable distance from us, when it uttered a scream so loud and shrill, that it echoed through the woods like the shriek of a terrified woman, except that it was louder than the human voice. It was a panther of the largest size; and as it disappeared, Old Sharp relaxed his grasp upon my shoulder, saying slowly:
"I thought that varmint war about to give us some trouble. Pick up your blanket, boy, and come up where we kin see the horses, thar's danger here; thar's Injuns in these woods. I've bin oneasy for some time; wake up t'other chap if you're sleepy, we must have two men out at onct."
I declined, however, to awaken the sick man, who, though an agreeable companion and a good soldier, was in too feeble health to endure the fatigues of so rugged a service. I then informed Sharp that I was willing to stand with him till morning; and from that time till daylight nothing occurred to further disturb the camp.
Early next morning we dispatched our breakfast, mounted our horses and again struck out on the trail, keeping a good lookout for Indians. It was scarcely half an hour after sunrise when we descried a faint smoke curling up through the timber on the river bottoms, but apparently not in the direction in which we were traveling. Leaving the trail, we moved directly toward the smoke at a charge; and as we entered the timber, we could see ten or a dozen Indians spring up from the ground, rifles in hand, the whole party scampering off toward a thicket some distance away. There was no chance to cut them off from the thicket before they could enter it; but we kept up the charge until we had come within two hundred yards of it, when we received a pretty well-directed volley from behind the bushes. We then hastened to surround the thicket as quickly as possible; but while we were doing this, the savages mounted their horses, and charged out upon and over us, I might almost say, for we had deployed too far to be able to rally in time to prevent it.
Lieut. Carmack rallied his men and made preparations for a pursuit. We had discharged a portion of our yagers and pistols in the melee, which had to be reloaded; and one of our men had received a wound in the arm from an arrow, and two horses had been hurt in the charge. It was a short job to extract the arrows from the horses, though they fought and kicked frantically; but not so with the man. Carmack tried to pull the arrow out, but it was no go. Next Sharp proposed to try it; he had had some experience in such matters, having been wounded more than once with arrows in his time. Opening his hands, he took the arrow between his palms and began rolling and lifting it, at the same time. The wounded man whose name was Williams, sat still on a log and endured the torture heroically. It lasted a full minute—this rolling and twisting—before the dull arrow had cut its way out of the flesh. His success so elated Sharp, that he held it up triumphantly, saying:
"Thar, now, I told you so; ef you'd a pulled agin on that arrer, you'd a did the business for that arm. Do you see that?" he continued, pointing to where the arrow was bent against the bone; "now the wonder is, that the spike hadn't a come out the fust pull you made."
Hastily bandaging Williams' arm, we mounted and commenced the pursuit. The Indians had headed directly for the Upper Reserve, now about twelve miles distant. We pursued till we were satisfied they belonged to Katampsie's band of Reserve Comanches, when turning, we struck out on our return to the Caddoe village. While passing through the settlements we were informed of a great many petty outrages committed by both Reserves, since their fight with Baylor's party. At one place they had robbed a man's dwelling; at another, thrown down the fences, and rode through and trampled down whole fields of corn; one man had been robbed of a fine mare; several watermelon patches had been plundered; and in one of the last-named offenses, we chanced to catch a party; but they mounted their horses and were quickly off. Not content with what they could eat, each man had some sort of a sack, and some of them, two or three, all filled with melons. As they fled we closed in on them at a charge, but our horses were tired, and no match for their fresh ponies. When the pursuit was at its hight, they hastily cut their sacks loose from their saddles and dropped them on the trail.
Not desiring to provoke hostilities with the Lower Reserve, to which these Indians belonged, we did not fire upon them; nor did they attempt to fire upon us. They perfectly understood our orders whenever found off their Reserves; but they evidently did not fear us much, for when they were high up on the mountain, one of them turned in his saddle and shouted back:
"White man's hoss no good; Injun's hoss heap good; white man no catch um. You go home; hoss heap sick; me see um." Then,