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LITTLE PILLS
   AN ARMY STORY
       o*+. BY
       R. H. McKAY
           it t
Formerly Acting Assistant Surgeon United Statei Army
Being Some Experiences of a United States Army
     Medical Officer on the Frontier Nearly
          A Half Century Ago
       1918
    PUBLISHED BY
PITTSBURG HEADLIGHT
   PITTSBURG. KANSAS 
 VJZ
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MismL 
FOREWORD
                                   BY R. H. McKAY

                This little skerch of army life on  the  frontier was first
                written, merely  for  the  pleasure  it  might  bring  to  my
                children in looking it over in after years.   It remained in
                the form of a manuscript for that purpose, until some of
 ^v              my friends urged its publication.  The merit of the story
                itself, if it has  any,  lies  in the  fact of actual  experience,
 v*              but probably  a matter  of more  importance  is to  call
 31              attention to the wonderful changes fhat  have taken place
 *J              in the fifty  years  just passed.  The  term frontier today
^              would be a misnomer.   There  is no frontier.   The  im-
                mense areas of wild  and waste  country  that then  existed
                has vanished before the tide of civilization and settlement.
                The present generation can never realize the vast changes.
                Possibly this little book  may bring to  mind, by way of
                contrast, at least some of the conditions then and now. 
 
LITTLE   PILLS
                       CHAPTER I.

    My children have often asked me to write out some of my
experience while a medical officer in the United States Army on
the frontier, and I have often resolved to do so.  But for many
years after leaving the service my time was so thoroughly taken
up in an effort to make a living and educate the children that my
good resolutions received scant attention.  Now in my 78th year
the apathy of old age is such a handicap, that great effort is re-
quired to do things that at one time I could have done cheerfully
but did not.
    I think my experiences during the Civil War gave me some-
thing of a taste for military duty, for when in the summer or
early fall of 1868 I noticed that  an Army Medical  Board was in
session at New York, I at once made application to appear before
it for examination for a position in the regular service.  I was
examined in October, 1868, and as thei board continued in session
for some time afterwards I  waited with some anxiety and mis-
givings as to the result of my examination. I had the impression
that the examination would be severe and was doubtful of my
ability to pass.  In this connection it is proper to say that some
had failed in these examinations that afterwards became noted
medical men.  Among them, I  was  informed, was  Dr.  Austin
Flint, Sr., whose work on the practice of medicine  was standard
and  considered the  best when I was a student.   His son, Dr.
Austin Flint, Jr., also became famous as our great Physiologist
and his work on that subject is standard today. It was not until
the following January that  I heard from my examination,  and
was then directed to report at St. Louis to be mustered into the
service as Acting Assistant Surgeon in the United States Army.
There was necessarily some delay in disposing of the few things
we  had, some of which we  sold and some of which we  stored. 
8
LITTLE  PILLS
Finally everything being disposed of, we  left our home in Wash-
ington, Iowa, and  from there, after a day with friends, took a
train for Burlington, thence to Keokuk, where my wife remained
visiting relatives, I going on to St. Louis to report.
     I was mustered into the service  January 29th, 1869, and
ordered to report  to  the Medical  Director, Department of the
Missouri  at Leavenworth, Kansas, for  assignment to duty.  The
Department of the Missouri at the time comprised the States of
Missouri, Kansas,  Colorado, New Mexico, The Indian Territory,
and I think Arkansas.
     General Sheridan was the commanding officer of the depart-
ment at that time. He also had a brother who was a captain and
who was  also  stationed at Leavenworth.  Dr. Miles  was the
Medical Director of the  Department and Dr. McGruder was Post
Surgeon  at Leavenworth.   I was  on .waiting orders  at Fort
Leavenworth for something over a month during which time I
got my first impression of the rank and file of the Regular Army.
The officers  impressed  me  as very  self important, exceedingly
courteous and cordial, and charming in their broad-gauge views
of current events and their unreserved candor in discussing all
subjects.   I must  except one subject, however,  and  that  was
politics.  An army officer is supposed  to  have  no politics, or if
he has he keeps them in reserve.   Seldom  during  nearly seven
years of  my life in the  army did I hear politics mentioned.  An
army officer is supposed to  do his  duty regardless of who holds
political authority  over him, and this he does most  loyally.  The
enlisted men impressed me  as a clean, attractive  and  well dis-
ciplined body of soldiers.  Another thing that impressed me was
the absolute separation of the officers and enlisted men.  It may
be different now but at  that time there seemed to be nothing of
even a fraternal interest. The officer commanded and the soldier
obeyed.  In this way they seemed as distinct  as oil and water, and
it was a rather surprising contrast to the volunteer service during
the war,  where enlisted men and officers often from the same
town and nearly always from the same community fraternized
and  often addressed each other  by  their given names; while in
the regular  service there was nothing of the kind.  An  officer 
LITTLE PILLS
9
when passing an enlisted man always received a salute.  The men
or man standing at attention when giving it and the officer was
required to return the salute.  The men may be sitting down, say
outside of their barracks, and when an  officer approaches and
gets within a certain distance  they all  rise at once, stand at
attention, and give the salute,  and this  is the extent  of  their
relations with each other.
    The officers  mess  at Leavenworth was  quite a  large one,
mostly  of  unmarried men, although there were maybe  two or
three married couples,  and was exceedingly cordial and sociable
with  each other.   Those  of the  rank of Captain or higher up in
rank were always  addressed by their military title  of Captain or
Major,  as  it might be,  but the  Lieutenants  were addressed as
Mister, or by their surnames, as Mr. Jones or simply Jones.
    The first of March came and with it came pay-day, a matter
that seemed of  much interest to the officers.  It did not take
me long to learn its importance for army officers at that time as
a rule literally lived up their salaries.  I  finally learned that an
officer was considered by many other officers as a little off color
if he was close-fisted and tried to save money out of his pay. To
me it was a matter of importance because I was poor and needed
it.  I sent most of my first month's pay, after paying mess bill
and a few  other  necessary expenses, to my wife, not keeping
enough, as  I afterward learned, for an  emergency that might
arise.  Expecting to be ordered to some frontier post,  I took the
precaution to invest in a  pistol, a very ridiculous thing to do, as
I now think of it.  The further history of that pistol will appear
later on in this story.
    While at Leavenworth the officers gave a hop.  I never knew
why it was called a hop instead of a dance, but it was always so
designated in the  army.  Officers came from  other places, par-
ticularly Fort Riley, among whom was General Custer of cavalry
fame during the Civil  War, and a  noted Indian fighter on the
frontier.  I watched him with a good deal of interest, for at that
time he was a distinguished man in the service, and I must say
that I was rather disappointed in his  appearance.  He  seemed
to me to be under-sized  and slender, and  at  first blush to be 
10
LITTLE  PILLS
effeminate in appearance. Maybe his long hair, almost reaching
to his shoulders, gave this impression, but the face was something
of a study and hard to describe.  Something of boldness or maybe
dash, a quick eye, and he was intensely energetic, giving the
impression that he would be a veritable whirlwind in an engage-
ment.  He did not convey the idea of a great character.  He was
a very graceful dancer.  His career ended  at the famous battle
in our Indian warfare, that of the Little Big Horn. Not a man of
his command escaped to tell the story.
    I think it was about the 8th or 9th of March that I received
orders to report  to the Chief Medical  Officer, District of New
Mexico, for assignment  to  duty.  The  quartermaster furnished
transportation, that is  to say,  orders to the transportation com-
panies, railroads,  stage-lines, etc., to carry the officer to point of
destination.  This, together with  the  order of  assignment to
duty, would  carry one wherever the assignment directed.  At
this  time  the so-called  Kansas-Pacific railroad  was  built out
pretty well towards the west line of the state, but there were no
transcontinental lines finished  until the following summer.   The
Union and Central Pacifies joining that year  in  Utah in July.
    I left  Fort Leavenworth in the morning and before  night
was out on the plains.  From Leavenworth to Topeka there was
some settlement.   The towns  as I remember them were  mere
railroad stations,  except Lawrence,  which was more pretentious,
and the scattering farmhouses were small and primitive in  style.
Topeka  seemed to be something of a town, but from there west
the country was only partially inhabited.  Fort Hayes  stood out
prominently to the left of the  railroad but the whole country
seemed  one great sea of desolation  unlimited in extent.  At that
time I would  not have given ten  dollars per square league for
what has since become one of the famous  wheat fields of the
country.  The evening of the  second day we arrived at a  place
called Sheridan which was the terminus of the railroad.  It was
a stragghng place of tents and wooden shacks, dance halls, bawdy
houses,  gambling  houses and saloons. Murders were of frequent
occurrence and it was  considered dangerous to be on the street
at night.  There was only one street in the  town. I started out 
LITTLE PILLS
11
onthis street about dusk, thinking I had better go to the stage
office and arrange for my transportation on to Santa Fe.  The
landlord  happened to  notice me and  called for me to wait a
minute and when he had joined me he inquired where I was going.
He said he would go with me as it might not be safe for me to be
alone, and told me of a killing  in front of the hotel the night
before.
    My bed that night was on the second story, merely floored,
and not plastered or sealed, and the roof slanted down close to the
bed.   The space between the floor and the edge of the roof was
open and I could look down into the saloon.  I watched the pat-
rons of  this place for some time for it was altogether a new
experience.   The clinking of glasses;  the  loud talk; the dim
lights; and the thorough abandonment of the motley crowd re-
mains  quite vividly in my memory.  It finally occurred to me
that in the event of a shooting scrape,  even there in bed was not
a very safe place, so I edged over to the far  side of the bed and
soon dropped to sleep, not waking until called in the morning.
    We got an early start and I had the stage mostly to myself
until we crossed the  Raton spur of the mountain.  The nights
were chilly and I was not over-warmly clad,  but I managed after
the first night to get a fair amount #of sleep. I felt some fear of
Indians although it was tod early in the season for them to go on
the war-path.  The summer before had been a particularly bad
one on the plains. Forsythe's command was almost annihilated
in October, 1868, on the  Ariskaree Fork of the Republican river,
and at every stage station until after we reached Trinidad, Colo.,
the first salutation between the  men at the  station and our con-
ductor was whether either had seen any Indians.  The apprehen-
sion was not that the Indians would go on the war-path at that
time of the year, because their  ponies could not exist  until the
grass was well started, but that  some of the  venturesome young
bucks might  take it into their heads  to attack the stage coach.
I peeked  out of the coach at night and wondered if there was any
probability of Indians attacking us and thought of my pistol, but
was not proud of it, or of my ability to use it.
    The  stage stations were interesting to me.   On the plains 
12
LITTLE  PILLS
proper they were uniformly built, underground as far up as the
sidewalls extended, and was located near some water hole and at
an  elevation that would  command a  view of the surrounding
country for some distance.  Above the dirt walls large logs  were
laid, upon  which the cross  timbers were placed  for  supporting
the roof.  These logs were raised  from the ground enough, say
three or four inches, to give the occupants a good view of the
surrounding country, and  an opportunity of using, their carbines
against attack from  the  Indians,  with comparative  safety  to
themselves.  The roof  was covered  with dirt.  The stables  were
built the same way with  underground passages or open ditches
connected with the station proper.   Both station and stable  were
connected in the same way with the water hole.  At these stations
on the plains proper, were  stationed  a small  squad of soldiers,
maybe a half dozen, under the command of a noncommissioned
officer, generally a sergeant, and you can readily see  that the
Indians would be a little cautious about getting too near such a
place although during the summer season  they  often  attacked
the stage between stations.  The stations were at variable  dist-
ances apart, depending on  the water supply, generally from eight
to twenty miles apart, and  were supplied by government trains
on their way to the military posts of the West.  There was not
much to attract attention  in approaching these stations,  no build-
ing in sight,  no sign  of  life. The first  thing you knew some
one would hollow "Hello!"  and "Hello!" would come back.  "Have
you  seen any Indians?" and there you are.  The last inquiry
was natural enough when  you  consider  the  near approach  of
spring, when the grass would be green  enough to furnish  feed
for Indian  ponies.  Indians  would not appear in large  numbers
at this time of the year,  but little  roving bands,  maybe  one or
two venturesome bucks might be seen  almost daily at  a  safe
distance, evidently  spying out the prospects  for more serious
work later  in the season.   Of  course we got our meals at these
stations, consisting generally of  bacon, hot corn-bread or biscuit,
a vegetable or two,  and black coffee.  This menus varied some
after we crossed the Raton Mountains and were practically out 
LITTLE PILLS
13
of Indian troubles, when we had  a  greater variety, and  it was
better prepared.
    We got to Trinidad late at night, the first town after cross-
ing the plains, and located just at the base on the north  side of
the Raton Range near the Purgatory river.  This was a mining
town of some importance in those  days, and had the usual quota
of dance halls, gambling dens and other equipment of a  typical
mining town.
    We got to Dick Wooton's  early the following morning and
had  a good breakfast.   His  place was located near the  top  of
Raton Pass  and consisted at that  time of a rambling lot of log
buildings; one for a house proper,  which was clean, comfortable,
and attractive inside, and the others for stables, blacksmith and
wagon shops,  and in fact anything and everything where repairs
to transportation could be made.  Dick himself was an attractive
personality, was  large,  quite above the average in sibe, with a
cheery open,.face giving  little evidence of the frontier man, and
yet he was  almost as noted as Kit  Carson with whom he  was
associated as  pioneer and scout.   Both were noted men  on the
frontier.  Wooton, however,  took  a  more  practical view  of life
than  Carson and  conceived the idea of building a wagon road
over the Raton Pass.  This road was completed and I think had
been  for some time before I crossed the pass.  If I remember
correctly we crossed a little stream coming down from near the
top of the range thirteen times before we came to the top of the
pass.  Wooton had some kind of permit  or authority from the
government for building this  read and was authorized to make it
a toll road.  He was reported to have made quite a fortune from
the revenue derived from it.
    A little  place  called Cimarron,   (which  in Spanish  means
mountain  of sheep) or  Maxwell's  ranch was  the  next place of
interest to me. This is some  distance south of the Raton Range,
maybe half  way from Trinidad to Fort Union.  It seemed that
Maxwell married a high class Spanish woman whose family owned
an immense estate in what was Mexico before it was ceded to the
United States.  In the division of the estate Maxwell's wife got a
grant of many thousands  of acres on  the head waters  of the 
14                     LITTLE PILLS
Cimarron, a tributary of the Canadian, which I understand was
very much reduced as a result of extended litigation with  the
government as to title.  We traveled for miles on what was then
called Maxwell's Ranch, where great herds of  sheep, cattle and
horses were  to  be seen, with an adobe house  here  and there,
where herders lived. It was a great pleasure to  stop even for one
meal  at such a  place  as Maxwell's.  The house was commodious
and  hndsomely  furnished  and everything was prosperous  and
home-like. Some years later I had the pleasure of acquaintance
of a daughter of Mr. Maxwell's who married al  ieutenant in the
army and we were serving at the same post.
    We passed Fort Union in the night and I did not get to  see
much of it, <but I understand it to be only a military post and
base  of supplies,  for the  Quarter-Master  or  Commissary  De-
partment of the army for  the District  of New  Mexico.
  My first view of-Las Vegas (The Meadows, in Spanish)  was
over a beautiful wide valley,  some  three or four miles across,
through which a pretty little stream of water, the source of the
Pecos,river, was wending its way.  The view was beautiful and
the town looked to be a place of importance, but proved to be
disappointing on a closer acquaintance.
    Not far from Las Vegas we  passed what was called the  old
Pecos church.  It was only a little distance from the road and
said  to  have been  built in the seventeenth century.   It stood
alone in its desolation and  had partially fallen  into decay.  The
room was off, the walW partly broken down and it looked to be as
old as reported.
    We arrived in Santa Fe late in the evening and stopped at the
hotel or  fonda,  as  it is called in Spanish.  At first  one feels
that he is in a different country; something foreign and out of
the usual, and this  feeling  grows with closer acquaintance.  For
instance you go direct from the street to your room if your wife
is  with you, or to a kind of a lobby or sitting  room with a bar
at one side if alone.
    I was thankful that the stage ride was ended. We had been
going night and  day since leaving the railroad at Sheridan, Kans.,
a distance of nearly four hundred miles, and although I had the 
LITTLE  PILLS
15
stage to myself most of the way, one passenger got on at Cimar-
ron that I will feel grateful to the balance of my days, and from
Fort Union to Santa Fe the coach was crowded all the way.  The
stage lines in those days had a conductor who went to the end of
the route, much  as our  railroad conductors do today,  while  the
drivers like our  engineers, only went to what  might be called
division  points, say twelve-hour trips.
    The conductor has charge, and is responsible for the United
States mail and the express packages which are carried  in what
is called the front boot, and where the conductor curls  up among
the mail sacks and packages and sleeps at night. The  back boot
is devoted to  baggage.   Inside there are generally two  seats
facing each other and wide enough for three persons  If not  too
big, on each seat.  The  stage coach had a great swinging body
resting on two immense leather straps for springs, one  on each
side  underneath and extending from  front to back.  These flex-
ible springs gave the coach] an easy side  swing and it was not a
particularly unpleasant thing to ride in.
    Having arrived in Santa Fe late  Saturday evening I did  not
report until next morning, and about  noon an orderly brought to
the hotel my orders from the Chief Medical officer  directing  me
to report to the  commanding officer  at Fort Selden, New Mex.,
for assignment to duty. This was startling news, for Fort Selden
was  the last military post before reaching the Mexican border
and I  had only $2.50 in my pocket  and my hotel bill  to pay.
Being new in the service and, something of a tenderfoot I did  not
want  to  go to  the other officers for  help.  I  left my  room and
went down to the hotel lobby and among others who were there
was the  gentleman who got on the  stage at Cimarron.  We had
traveled  together from Cimarron to  Santa Fe with hardly  the
exchange of the usual courtesies.  I  was not a good mixer and he
had nothing to say, but  my case  was very desperate.  I had to
talk to someone so I asked if he was acquainted in Santa Fe and
he said "some."  I told him my troubles and that I had a good
watch and a good pistol  (that pistol was  a hoodoo by this time)
that  I would put  up as security for a few dollars to pay my  ex-
penses on the way to Fort Selden.  He said: "Well, nobody would 
16
LITTLE PILLS
 give you anything for them things. If I had the money I would
 let you have it."  This in a rather slow drowning voice.  I  took
 this as a matter of course.  Anybody would- talk the same  way,
 I thought, whether they had it or not.
    Dinner was soon  ready.  The dining room was away to the
 rear end of this somewhat rambling hotel building.   We passed
 through a billiard hall and maybe some store rooms before reach-
 ing it.  I think,  however,  there was a different route for the
 ladies.  I suppose the dinner was  good but do not remember
 much  about  it.  I do remember,  however, on  the  way  back
 through the pool hall I stopped to glance around the  room which
 was a very  long one with many tables and many players.  The
 second  table  away  became very interesting to me  for near it
 stood my man of short acquaintance apparently talking to one of
 the players, a large fine looking man who, laying his cue across
 the corner of the table, pulled out such a wad of bills  as I had
 never seen before and commenced counting out the money to my
 newly made acquaintance.   I  passed and  went  up to my room
 wondering if he would keep his word, now that he had the money.
 I tried to read  but made poor headway.  Pretty  soon there  was
 a light tap on the door and I said "come in." The door opened
 and there was my new found friend who took a seat in a rather
 deliberate way and said  nothing.  I made some remark about
 the weather which seemed  to meet his approval but directly he
 asked me: "About how much money do you think you will need ?"
 I told him I thought about twenty dollars would be enough.   He
 brought from his pocket a great bunch of bank notes and counted
 out twenty dollars and handed it  to me.  When I  offered  my
 security he  politely turned  them down saying  he  would  take
 chances. When I  asked him if he had never lost money  that
 way he replied, "Yes, some." And when I said I would feel better
 myself if he would take something to make himself safe he said,
 "Oh no, I'll take chances."  When next  I  inquired about  his
 knowledge of Santa Fe and the v/est generally he became more
 communicative  and  informed me that he had spent all his  life
from  a youngster as  a prospector,  sometimes striking  it good
and selling out  and trying it again; sometimes having plenty of 
                SATANTA
         War Chief of the Kiowas
Original in our possession, taken by Soule,
    of Boston, while we were stationed
                at  Tort Sill 
 
LITTLE  PILLS                     17
money, and at other times having nothing.  Someone else would
then furnish him a "grub-stake" as he called it with which to try
again.  He and  his partners had just sold out a gold mine at
Cimarron and I presume the money I saw him receive from the
big man at the pool table was part of the proceeds of that sale.
He finally asked me if I cared  to walk about the town some.  I
think I would have gone with him anywhere, so I responded very
promptly that I  would like to.  The town was  utterly strange to
me,  so different from anything I had  ever seen:  adobe walls,
adobe houses, and  the people  were as strange looking as the
houses.  The women wore some kind of a wrap over their head
called a mantilla (pronounced  man-tee-ya, with  the accent  on
the second syllable) leaving a little open space for onee ye to peep
out at people they met, and the men with the wide  brimmed,
high peaked hats that I afterwards learned are the universal cos-
tumes of the  Mexican people.  After looking around  a  bit my
companion asked me  if I would like to see a cock-fight.  Sure
thing, of course I would, although having been raised a strict
Scotch Presbyterian I felt some qualms of conscience about wit-
nessing such  an exhibition  on the "Sabbath."
     The  amphitheater in which the exhibition was  given was
without cover and enclosed by a high adobe wall.  It was crowd-
ed with men and women, mostly Mexicans, in gala dress, some
very richly dressed women and some whose attire attested pov-
erty, but even these wore bright colors.  The head covering was
universal but  as varied in  colors and quality  as  the fancy and
wealth of  the wearers suggested.  I think some of the hats of
the men must have cost a small fortune.  The exhibition itself
was not very attractive to me.  I could see the chickens sparring
around as though for a good opening and finally one of the cocks
would drive the  gaff home with  deadly  effect and the people
would shout and clap their hands and exchange the money they
had wagered on the result.  The management would then bring
in another  pair  of birds for another contest.   The betting con-
sisted not only of money but all kinds of trinkets and valuables.
I saw one woman take off her white slippers  handsomely orna-
mented with gold braid and spngles and bet them on the result 
18
LITTLE  PILLS
of the contest.  The affair,was conducted in Spanish-Mexican and
I could  not understand anything that was  said,  but  they all
seemed  to be delighted with the exhibition.  To me it  was not
only cruel  but  was uninteresting.  We did not stay until the
finish but went out and saw some more of the town, then re-
turned to our hotel.
    My newly  made friend  came up to my room  after supper,
and spent part  of the evening with me.  I found his experiences
interesting.  The old story of ups and downs, money to spare, and
grub-stakes furnished by some one else, to give him  another start.
He gave me his address and I was very prompt in  returning his
twenty dollars as soon as I got to Fort Selden, which by the way,
I borrowed from the post trader until  pay-day.   In answer to
my remittance I received a post card without address or date say-
ing, "You needn't have been in such a hurry."  Thus ended an
acquaintance and experience that I think could not have happened
anywhere else than on the  American frontier.  His name was
Robert  Daugherty and nothing could give  me greater pleasure
than to meet him again and furnish him a "grub-stake" if he
needed it.
    Santa Fe (Holy Faith, in Spanish) was an old town when the
Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.  About  1606  according to
Colonel  R. E. Twitchell, the best authority on the early history of
New Mexico, it was  made  the  capital  of  one of the  Spanish
provinces, and  had been built on the site  of  two small Indian
pueblos.  I  believe if I had been dropped down in  some  town in
the interior of China and had found a few Americans to talk to
it would not have seemed more strange to me.  The office of the
chief medical officer of the district was located in  a building on
the plaza that someone told me was the old palace, but  which I
thought did not look much like a palace, and which I understand
is now used as  a museum  in which are to be found the most re-
markable collection of archaeological specimens in  America. 
CHAPTER II.
    Monday  morning I  started for Fort  Selden on  the  Rio
Grande, nearly three hundred miles away.  We had  a different
type of stage coach, a small affair, more  like a carriage,  and
drawn by two horses.  Some eight or ten miles out of Santa Fe
we almost literally dropped off into a canon that widened out into
more of a  valley as we continued our journey until we reached
the Rio Grande some distance above Albuquerque.  This town was
at that time  a straggling Mexican village of adobe houses along
the east bank of the river. It is now a city of considerable size
on the east side, with modern  improvements and is a division
point on the  Santa  Fe railway and a town of commercial import-
ance.
    The  river  was disappointing. I expected something bigger,
and it wound around from one side of the valley to the other as
though in doubt as to the best way to go.  The valley was inter-
esting because of its being occupied by an altogether different
type of Indians.  We had left the plains Indian at Trinidad and
from there to Santa Fe had seen only Mexicans with a fair pro-
portion of Americans whose business interests were in the coun-
try.   The  Plains Indian,  Cheyennes, Commanches, and Kiowas
and Arapahoes, were  nomadic and  warlike. Here was an agri-
cultural people who lived  in little villages called pueblos, a name
also attached to the Indians themselves. Their villages were lo-
cated at convenient distances apart and both men and women
went to the fields to work.  The land was divided  off into little
patches separated by irrigating ditches, called asacies, and there
were no  fences  or  lines to show individual ownership.  It was
seemingly a community interest, a kind of socialism.  The  Pueblo
Isletta was the capital and principal town  and was the place of
meeting for the  disposal  of important  questions  of  interest to
the tribe, and for the observance of such religious services as was
their wont.  The hoe  was the principal agricultural  implement,
both for making ditches and for cultivating the land.  The people
seemed to be  kindly disposed, and in every way a contrast to  the 
20
LITTLE  PILLS
Plains Indian whose women do the work while the men do the
hunting and fighting.  They enter their houses by way of the
roof, climbing a ladder from the ground to the roof and pulling
the ladder up after them, then descending by way of an opening
in the room to the room  or rooms below.   No doors, and only
little peep-holes for windows, sometimes covered with a thin cloth
of muslin.  I suppose this was done in the first place as a protec-
tion against the Mountain  Indians (Utes and Navajos)  who in
early times raided the valley and carried ff anything they could
lay  their hands on. The valley was sparcely wooded except here
and there when we would come to great groves or boscas as they
were called, of immense cotton-wood trees which were very beau-
tiful.   The  valley as described above was the same all the way
down to Fort Selden.
    After leaving  the Pueblo settlements we came to a country
occupied nearly altogether by Mexicans. The commercial interests
were conducted by so-called foreigners: Americans, Germans and
Jews, the latter predominating, but the population was principal-
yl Mexican.  Stock raising and  farming were the principal in-
dustries,  the latter in a very primitive way.   They had no  mod-
ern farm implements, such as  plows, harrows, wagons, etc., and
only such improved tools as they could construct from the scant
material  at hand.  I saw at one place a man driving a yoke of
cattle attached  to  what appeared to be the limb of a tree with
a projecting prong entering the ground, and at the other end,
which bent up something like a handle, was another man holding
it.  They were going back and forth making little ditches or fur-
rows but not turning the ground  over as our plows  do.  It looked
primitive indeed  and reminded  me of  a picture  I  saw  in  an
almanac  when  a  kid,  representing  the  Egyptian  plowing.
Stock business  was more promising.  A good many cattle were
reported  on the range and I was told the sheep numbered many
thousands scattered  all along the  mountain range to the west.
Soccorro  was the principal town, typically Mexican, but  a  place
of some business importance.  There were small villages at fre-
quent intervals all the way to Paraj a,  the  last town near the
river  before crossing the  Jornada del Muerto  (or "Journey of 
LITTLE  PILLS
21
Death"  in Spanish) which extends from Paraja  (pronounced
Paraha, j having the  sound of h in Spanish) to Fort Selden,
nearly one hundred miles across, a desert properly  named and
that has some pitiful associations in my memory.  It was what
was known as the Apache Indian country and grewsome stories
are related concerning it.  Death by Indians, famishing for want
of water, etc., etc.  I must tell a legend concerning it and the
desert country to the east and north.   Near Paraja and rising
bluff  from the river's  edge is  a  high  bit of  mountain, hardly
worth the name of range, on  the top  of which  lying in a re-
cumbent position is as  perfect profile of a face and bust as you
could imagine.  You get a fine view of it from Fort Craig and
for a great distance to  the northwest and northeast.  The legend
is that  a friar, Christobal by name, and for whom the mountain
or range was named, was traveling through the country on his
work for the souls  of men when he perished from thirst.  Some
supernatural  agency  brought  his body to this  mountain  top
where it hardened  into stone and remains to  this day a monu-
ment commemorating a tragedy, and a land mark and guide to
the weary and thirsty traveler pointing the way to where he may
find water.
     We left Paraja and the river and valley at  night after a good
supper, havins supplied oureslves with water enough for the trip,
expecting to get breakfast at a place about half-way across, called
the Alaman  (Allemand)  literally meaning "Dutchman" where  it
was reported a German had been found some years before, killed
and scalped by  Indians.   There had been repeated efforts made
to find water on this desert.  General Pope when a young officer
of the  service had  spent  a large amount of government money
digging for  water.  Finally a man by  the name of  Martin,  a
 Scotchman, who furnished the meat supply at Fort  Selden, was
 so persistent with the commanding officer in asserting his ability
 to find water, that he was furnished a body of soldiers as  an
escort and guard and  commissary supplies for the undertaking.
He had been working faithfully and persistently for some months
 He had also put some  adobe rooms and had them furnished, his
hauling his water supply from a spring in a canon some six or 
22
LITTLE  PILLS
 eight miles away and had built an adobe wall around his camp.
 He had also put some adobe rooms and had them furnished, his
 wife  being an important assistant in the undertaking, and he
 was still sinking his well deeper and expressing an abiding faith
 in the result.   It must be a glorious feeling to be vindicated in
 such  an undertaking.  It was rumored along the overland route
 that Jack Martin had found water but not enough, and upon our
 arrival  we found that he not only had water but had an abund-
 ance of it and our stage was the first to arrive after he struck it.
 After eating a late breakfast, which was a very good one, we
 started for Fort  Selden still some fifty  miles away.  This  part
 of the trip was uneventful as we only stopped once to feed and
 water the  team, having carried the  necessary supplies  with us.
 We arrived at Fort Selden in the evening.  All the way from
 Santa Fe down I frequently noticed little piles of stone by  the
 wayside, sometimes with little hand-made wooden  crosses stand-
 ing up in the  center marking the place where someone  had  met
 a violent death, maybe by Indians or maybe at the hands of some
 renegade Mexicans.  It is the custom among the Mexican people
 in passing  to toss another stone on the pile and in this way some
 of them became of considerable size, the  size of the pile indicat-
 ing in a way the time that had elapsed since the murder had been
 committed.
    I reported to the commanding officer at the post and the
 following day was assigned to duty.  By invitation I took dinner
 with one of the officers the evening of my arrival.  Among other
 good things we had a choice roast of beef which they informed
 me was from their very choice and only milk cow.   It seems the
 herders were not sufficiently on guard and this  animal had  be-
 come  separated from the herd but in rounding  up the herd in
the evening it was discovered that this  particular cow had an
 Indian arrow in her side and on examination it was thought best
some  small timber and  underbrush along  the streams affording
 to kill her. The  good woman did not have  much appetite  for
beef but grieved over the loss of her favorite cow.  There  was
 a good hiding place for sneaking Apaches who might be disposed
to commit depredations.  It was the rule  at this post that when 
LITTLE  PILLS
23
the officers' wives wanted to take  an airing to send an escort
along with the ambulance  as a protection against the Indians.
    It was a two company post  and the duties of the medical
officer were light; so much so as  to become a little monotonous,
but was sometimes varied by a trip to Las Cruces or Messilla,
some fifteen or eighteen miles distant. These towns were at one
time  separated by the river but  some years before an unusual
flood had swept down the valley  and the river  had made a new
channel leaving the  towns close neighbors.  Even  in those  days
they  were places of some  importance.
    While stationed at  this post  I  made my first acquaintance
with  gambling.   It did  not take  me long  to learn that it was
the universal custom in  the country. The Sutler's  or Post Trad-
er's  store wa  sa  favorite  resort for those  who indulged in the
various games.   I remember an old man camping  not far from
the post who made it his business.  He remained there for some
time and in conversation one day  I expressed my surprise at the
universal custom  and he informed me that he had rather bet his
money on Monte  than loan  it out at ten per cent interest,  and
yet his dress and camping  outfit  did not indicate  a  man of
fortune.
    One of the most interesting incidents of my experience  here
was  one  Sunday  morning after  inspection  when  a group  of
officers were  standing  out  on the parade  grounds talking  on
various subjects when one of them was attracted  by  something
at our feet and called attention to  it. Upon closer investigation
we discovered it to be the outlines of a human  skull,  the top of
which had been worn away by the trampling of many feet  over
the parade  ground.  The post commander  ordered  the  dirt re-
moved from around it  and thus  unearthed a  complete human
skeleton except where the top of  the head had been worn away.
It was in a sitting position with the knees flexed up close to the
chin but the bones crumbled upon being exposed  to the air. There
was no evidence of shroud or other  covering to the body. What
race of people buried their dead that way? How long had it
been in its resting place? 
24
LITTLE PILLS
    This post at that time was about seven hundred miles from
the railroad.  I doubt if  there is a place in  the United  States
today outside of Alaska or our insular possession where one could
go and be seven hundred  miles from a railroad.
    Along in the first part of May of that year I received  orders
from the chief medical officer of the  district to exchange  places
with Dr. Seguin, post surgeon at Fort  Craig.   General Grover
was the commanding officer at Fort Craig and was  considered a
good deal of a  Martinet.   As explained to me by Doctor Seguin,
it  seems that  Mrs. Grover wanted something from  the  hospital
which the doctor declined to send her and General Grover  there-
upon ordered it sent.  The doctor disobeyed the order  and the
matter was  carried to district headquarters and probably higher
up for it involved the question of military discipline  and  also the
rights  of medical  officers under  army  regulations.   It is well
enough  here to say that  the  medical  corps is  a corps to  itself,
distinct from any  other branch of the service, and  orders come
through the medical officers from the surgeon general down to
the divisions;  departments and districts, and yet at  the military
post the commanding officer is supposed to be "monarch  of  all
he surveys" os  you see there was a chance for controversy. Any
way it was settled by Doctor Seguin being ordered to Fort  Selden
to take my  place and I to his place at Fort Carig.
    General Grover was a severe looking man past middle age,
and had seen  service on the frontier before the  Civil War.   He
was a strict disciplinarian and held  himself  aloof  from  every-
thing around.   I have seen him walking down the line of officers'
quarters straight as an arrow, maybe with hands elapsed behind
his back and an orderly walking the  proper distance behind.  He
never entered an officer's quarters but if he wanted anything he
would send  his orderly to the officer with "the General's com-
pliments and would like to see you." The officer then walked out
to where  the  general was standing and  at the  proper  distance
stopped, stood  at attention and saluted and waited for such com-
munications as the general would make.  He then saluted again
and returned to his quarters and the general went on his way. 
LITTLE  PILLS
25
    Mrs. Grover was confined soon after my arrival at the post
and gave birth to  a daughter.  When the general was  called in
to see the new arrival he merely looked at  it, gave a grunt, or
"huh," and then turned and walked out.  Mrs. Grover was the
most queenly looking woman I ever saw; a magnificent physique;
a commanding presence  and a dignified  and gracious manner.
She seemed to possess all the qualities my imagination  had con-
jured up as  befitting a queen.   She was the daughter of Dr.
Austin Flint, Sr., whom I mentioned in an earlier chapter, and a
sister of Dr.  Austin Flint, Jr., the eminent  physiologist.  I  was
frequently called to their quarters to see the baby, not I thought,
that it  needed anything,  but that the mother wanted someone
to talk  with.   The general was  civil enough to me but never
cordial.   I think it was not his nature to be so.  He invited me
occasionally  to go  with him in his carriage to places away from
the post, say to Paraja some twelve  miles away, or perhaps just
for a ride, a  courtesy he never extended to  other officers of the
post.  On these little excursions I found that the general was an
interesting talker, mostly with reference to his experiences on
the frontier before the war. The war itself and the army since
the war was  never mentioned that  I remember.  He had been
a major general during the war and was now a colonel and it was
thought by most of the officers that he felt humiliated  by being
assigned to  a negro regiment,  the twenty-fourth  infantry.  I
was  invited  to their quarters one  morning for breakfast  and
maybe  one  or two  other meals  during the  summer but as I
remember them now they were rather formal and  uninteresting.
    Fort Craig was a walled fort, made so in early days as a pro-
tection against Indians.  It was typical of most of the posts at
which I served in being built in the form of a square.  The parade
ground  being a square plot varying in  size at different posts,
around which are  located the buildings.  The officers occupying
one side of the square; the barracks being directly opposite and
the commissary and quarter master department generally occu-
pying one side and the commanding officer's quarters  and post
headquarters and adjutant's office occupying the other side.   At
Fort Craig just outside of these buildings  was an adobe wall 
26
LITTLE  PILLS
about ten feet high.   Next to the guardhouse  was an opening
large enough for wagons to enter the parade ground with heavy
gates to close at night, and there were some small openings  in
the wall for other purposes, one being near the hospital.  The
walls of the buildings were of adobe with heavy timbers across  to
support the roof of dirt.  The floors were what the Mexicans
called "Jaspa"  (pronounced Haspa), a kind of cement made  of
gypsum or lime sulphate which is found in great beds through a
great portion of New  Mexico.  It is quarried  or  blasted  out,
heated to drive out the water  or crystalization, then ground into
a powder and when mixed with sand and water makes a  pretty
fair quality of  cement.  It was used altogether in the floors for
the military posts along the Rio Grande.
    The water  supply  at Fort Craig was obtained from the Rio
Grande  river and there were times about June when the  snows
mented in the mountains that it answered very well to a descrip-
tion I once read of the Missouri river water, "Too thick to drink
and too thin to cultivate."  This was a great bother to us during
the summer rise for it was persistent for more than a month.  I
conceived the idea of making a filter by making a good sized ball
of jaspa and charcoal  which I held  together by mixing a little
cotton batting carefully in the mortar and kneeding it into a very
stiff paste.  After it hardened I bored a hole in  the ball and in-
serted a rubber tube and then^ put the ball in a, "Tanaja," a large
ungalvanized earthen jar holding eight or ten gallons  of the
muddy water.  This jar  was put in an army blanket and  was
swung in the hallway.  The jar being porus  would let enough
water through to keep the, blanket damp, which cooled the water.
By  swinging another tanaja just below the first and having  it
blanketed in the same way, and having a rubber  tube connecting
the two, I had a filter that furnished clear, sparking, cool water.
I put one in the hospital and they became quite the  vogue  at the
post.
    The  wood  supply  was  brought  from  the mountains some
thirty miles away.  Trains comprising several  wagons would be
sent out  in charge of a wagonmaster with men  enough to load
them promptly  and by starting early and returning late they 
LITTLE  PILLS
27
sometimes made the round trip in two days, but generally they
were  three days out.
    For a month or more I was in the officers' mess, consisting
only of single men or those whose families were  away.  The meals
were  rather stately affairs and to me seemed a little tinged with
the ridiculous in that far-away plaee.  There was a colored man
standing behind each officer's chair dressed in the proper toggery
to do his duty and to give him every attention.  I never saw any
more perfect service at any hotel and the table was the best the
commissary department and the surrounding country would pro-
vide.
    Prices outside the commissary were much higher than  we
had then in Iowa.  Eggs,were fifty cents a dozen; butter a dollar
and a quarter a  pound.  I  paid these prices  regularly when I
started my own mess.  I  had what was called  a student's lamp
in those days and paid five dollars a gallon for coal oil, as it was
then called.  Of course that was before oil tanks were known and
it was carried across the plains in barrels, maybe in hot weather,
and on slow moving ox trains, being months on the way.  The
evaporation would necessarily be very great,  and  by the time
the sutler's store got its percent of profit (probably one hundred
percent or more)  one could easily see that fifty cent oil in Iowa
could easily be five dollars in  New Mexico.  Some years later at
Fort  McRae, further  down the river, we got it for two dollars
and a half per gallon by sending a five gallon can to Santa Fe to
be filled.
    Thinking that I was a fixture at Fort Craig for some time
I wrote my wife and asked her to join me after her visit in the
East  was over.  In view of  her coming I started a mess of my
own and had a little colored drummer boy detailed as servant and
cook.   He was as black as night and I called him Sandy. To start
with I laid in a pretty good supply of commissaries, among them
ten pounds of cut loaf sugar.  I had my first dinner on Saturday
and the following Monday morning I asked Sandy if anything was
needed.  "Yas sah, Doctor, we needs  some moah sugar."  Why
Sandy, I said, we got ten pounds of each kind on Saturday, which
kind do you want?  "We needs some moah cut  loaf sugar, sah," 
28
LITTLE  PILLS
he said.  What, cut loaf  sugar?  "Yas sah, Doctor, it takes a
powerful sight 'o sugar for deserts."  Well all right Sandy, I said,
I'll see about it.  I thought it was going pretty fast for only two
dinners so I stopped on my way back from the hospital at Major
Sweet's quarters and asked Mrs. Sweet how  much cut loaf sugar
they used.   She was bright and quick as a flash, and wished to
know, while trying to look serious, why I  asked such a question.
Finally  she broke out into a jolly rippling laugh  and said, "I
know what's the matter, Sandy has been carrying your sugar off
to the laundresses."  I told Sandy when I returned to my quart-
ers that I did not mind his having all the sugar he wanted him-
self but I did not want to feed all the laundresses at the  post on
cut  loaf sugar.  He did better afterwards but I still think the
laundresses  got some sugar.
    There is no other part of the country so  far as I know where
skunks were so plentiful as in New Mexico. They were a nuisance
at all the posts at which  I served in that territory, but if pos-
sible were worse at Fort  Craig  than elsewhere.  One evening I
had gone to the post trader's to get my mail  and upon my return
I found the odor in my quarters so pronounced that I investigated
and found that Sandy had killed a skunk in the kitchen.  He ex-
plained by saying that he  had tried to drive  it out and could not
do so and that he had killed it.  I told him to open up all the
windows and doors and scrub the kitchen floor and I went back
to the sutler's store in self protection.  I did  not return until late
when I found the odor worse than ever and  Sandy explained the
matter this  time by saying another skunk came in and had made
its way into my bed-room and got under the wardrobe  and he
could not get  it out and was compelled to kill it.   This he did
by punching it to death.   The result can be imagined, but not
very well described.  I slept on a cot in the front room for some
time afterwards  and found hunting and out-door exercise more
interesting  than remaining in  my quarters.
    The sand storms at Fort Craig were something to remember,
or rather I  should say impossible to  forget.   They  are simply a
straight  wind blowing with terrific  force and  loaded with fine
sand and dust and very fine gravel.  I remember particularly one 
LITTLE  PILLS
29
that came up one day when the steward and I were making out
the monthly reports at the hospital.  The windows and doors were
closed  and everything  made as snug as possible, yet when the
storm was over one made tracks when  walking across the floor
as visible as he would have made walking along a sandy highway.
It was a serious matter to be out in one of them, for  unless the
face was covered one would suffer severely from the stinging sand
and fine gravel, and everything a short distance away was shut
out from sight.  There are also some pleasant things  to remem-
ber of my experience at this post.  The hunting, particularly of
wild fowl, was very good, the ducks remaining late in  the spring
and returning early in the fall. The sunsets were beautiful be-
yond my power of description.  It was my first summer in a rari-
fied atmosphere and I imagined at times I could see objects mov-
ing along the mountain range some thirty miles away.   I remem-
ber one evening when Doctor Seguin was visiting a few days with
me on his return from  Fort  Selden to New York, having left the
service, we were out for a walk together and were up  on a little
mound just west of the post as the sun went down and his at-
tention was called to the  beautiful cloud effects.   He remarked
that he had never seen anything more beautiful in Italy.  The
doctor was a Frenchman by birth; his father was a medical man
of distinction, and while most of his life had been spent in this
country he had traveled extensively abroad  and his  education,
particularly in medicine, had been acquired in Europe.  He was
now returning to New York to  take up his work as a lecturer on
nervous diseases in the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
     While the  doctor was visiting with me  we went  up to San
Marcial to witness the  games on St. John's day, June 24th. San
Marcial was at that time a small straggling Mexican village of one
street with adobe houses on each side and all told maybe had one
hundred inhabitants.  We  did not go into any of the houses and
only witness one game of any interest, it was a rough-and-tumble
affair and excited great interest among the Mexicans.  A rooster
with its legs tied would be buried in a little mound of sand in the
middle of the street, leaving only its head and neck sticking above
the mound.  The game was for the  horsemen to form in line 
30
LITTLE  PILLS
some  distance up  the  street and come at full  speed  swooping
down  from the saddle, grab the chicken by the head,  and then
the battle was on for the chicken.  The possessor of the  unfortun-
ate chicken would strike^ out over adobe walls and across irrigat-
ing ditches, anywhere to get out of the way of his pursuers and
when  at last he would be cornered, or surrounded, a battle royal
would follow.  I could not determine  how the  matter was de-
cided  but when the  game was  over they would come  back and
repeat the performance. There  were many misses in their efforts
to pick up the rooster, but a few of the contestants were more
expert than the others and several succeeded  in swinging  down
and retrieving the rooster from  the mound  of sand.   We left
while the game was still in progress.  In all the  games I  witnessed
among the Mexicans there appeared the  element  of  cruelty in
some form or other.
    During the summer of 1869  while stationed at this post I
went to Paraja to  see the  Penitentes parade.   I don't know why
it was called a parade for it was an exhibition of cruelty that
I have never at any  other time in my  life seen equaled.  It was
supposed to be a religious ceremony but consisted of  a proces-
sion in single file  of those who had committed  great  crimes or
sins.  The one in front carried  a  great wooden cross, the cross-
bar of which rested on his neck and shoulders, he carrying it in
a somewhat stooped position.   It was  of an enormous size, the
cross-bar extending as I estimated it, at least eight feet in length
and the stem in proportion.  It had been made of dry cotton-
wood  logs and hewn out to probably eight or  ten inches square
and was a crude looking affair, but was probably not as heavy as
it looked.  The one  bearing  this cross took  the lead  and was
naked to the waist and from there down wore only a single cotton
garment, pants-like in shape, but very full, something like a skirt,
and all those following were dressed in a similar way.   All were
bare-footed and  there  were probably twenty  or more of them.
Each  carried thongs with which  he struck the man in front of
him on the bare back, all acting in something  like uniformity as
to time and repeating in unison and in a drone  like voice some-
thing in Spanish  that  I could not understand.  Before the pro- 
LITTLE  PILLS
31
cession ended the backs of most of the participants were notably
bloody and some of them very much so.  Paraja is located liter-
ally in a bed of sand and  I wondered how they could stand it that
hot August day in their bare feet and the bloody work of the
thongs left the impression on my mind  of being a most  brutal
performance.  But they were sincere and no doubt believed they
were atoning for sins committed.   What  kind of a God is it who
would accept such an atonment or approve of its offering? The
faces  of the participants were mostly of a brutal type and they
looked as though  they were capable  of  committing  almost any
crime. This exhibition did not impress me as in any way religi-
ous but on the contrary  as exceedingly barbarious and supersti-
tious.
    By act of Congress  during the winter of 1868 and 1869 the
army was ordered reduced, which to me  was  a serious matter as
it rendered improbable  any  convening of a medical board for
examination of medical officers for promotion, at least for some
years to come.  As I  remember such line officers as wished to
resign could do so with  the privilege  of  a year's additional pay,
and enough others would be dropped from the service to  bring
the number down to the  required standard, also with  a year's ad-
ditional pay.  The only difference being that of resigning or being
dropped from the service.  Quite a number of line officers pre-
ferred resigning.   Among those who did  so was Lieutenant Page
of the twenty-fourth infantry at Fort  Craig.  He proposed selling
me his cow and  I proposed  trading  him my pistol  for  it.  He
thought the matter over and said that he proposed locating on a
farm  in Missouri and the pistol might come very handy, so  we
made the exchange.  He came to visit me at Girard, Kansas, after
I had quit the service and gave me a farther history of the pistol.
He had missed a good deal of corn from his fields and watched
for the thieves and shot  one of them quite seriously.  The matter
got into the courts and being so soon after* the War the factional
feeling had not died out, and  the long  litigation that followed
almost bankrupted Mr. Page, rather a disreputable record for a
pistol to make, but I imagine that  there have been comparatively
few occasions where  pistols  were used  in personal encounters, 
 
CHAPTER III.
    Fort Wingate is a  post about one hundred and fifty miles
west and a little north of Albuquerque and in the mountains in
what was then called the Navajo country.  While there I saw one
of the  squaws making a Navajo blanket.  I supposed it would be
called weaving but was unlike any weaving I ever saw, yet when
a lad I was quite  familiar with the looms and spinning wheels
of the times, and the making of cloth. The blanket making ap-
peared to be a very tedious process, the warp being held taut by
stakes in the ground and the filling or woof worked in under and
over the threads forming the  warp and pressed in place by a
little flat piece of wood passing between the threads of the warp.
I could more readily understand why the  blankets were so ex-
pensive.
    We remained at Wingate probably two weeks. I was a guest
of Doctor Vickery, the  post surgeon. He was a most charming
host and all-around good fellow.  He gave me a little handful of
garnets the Indians had brought  him from the little ant hills so
abundant in the country.  I sent  a few of the choicest stones to
Tiffany & Company of New York and had  two  rings made; one
for my wife and one for4 a friend, the post surgeon's wife at Fort
Wallace, who had  been  most kind to  her while  she was waiting
for an opportunity to join me.
    The company from  Fort  Wingate to  Fort Dodge together
with the headquarters' paraphernalia was under the command of
Mr. Krause, a lieutenant of the  fifteenth  infantry.  Instead of
coming around by Albuquerque we came  part way and then cut
across  country to the northeast.  When within a few miles of the
Rio Grande the wagon  road bore down to the southeast.  The
infantry cut across in the direction of Barnalillo  (double L  has
the sound of E in Spanish)  and the transportation followed the
wagon road.  Mr. Krause and I took the ambulance and when we
reached the river in place of going up  stream on the west side as
the wagons were directed to do we crossed  over to the old over-
land stage  route and then went north on the east side.  It was 
34
LITTLE PILLS
late when we reached the outskirts  of the town and we noticed
a great light as though some building was on fire.  We had now
left the stage road and were trying  to find one that would take
us to a  crossing on the river. We were about to enter the town
or pueblo, for it was an Indian pueblo, when we had a good view
of the fire which proved to be an immense bonfire in the middle
of the street  with many  people gathered around  it.  An Indian
met us and gave us to understand that we could go no farther.
With what little Spanish we could command, and by signs, we got
him to understand that we wanted to reach the command on the
other side of the river. By that time another Indian or two had
joined us and they at once took the matter in hand.  One of them
got into the ambulance and by signs indicated to the driver which
way to go and the first man to meet us signalled Mr. Kruse and
myself to follow him.  He would take us through the pueblo, but
started around the outskirts of the place and after what seemed
to me an interminable time brought us  up at a high bluff. It was
quite  dark and  we could  see the campfires across the  river, but
how to get there, or whether we would get there, seemed  ques-
tionable to me.   However, the Indian knew what he was about,
and soon found the place he wanted,  and  disappeared over the
side of the bluff on what  proved to be steps cut out of the rock,
leading  down to the valley below. It was then only a  short dis-
tance to the ford and our  guide motioned us to stay there, and we
understood he wanted us to wait for the ambulance, but he waded
across the river.  We found him on our arrival in camp carrying
wood  for the campfires and seemingly greatly pleased at  being
able to help us.  We gave him a dollar at which he was evidently
delighted.  The transportation  arrived  soon  after  we  reached
camp and all was  right again.
    We reached Santa Fe early, in November—I think  the  4th—
and only stayed in town a few hours to rest and report  to district
headquarters  where arrangements were  made  to have the pay-
master come out to a place agreed on some five miles out where
we would camp that night and pay off  the men. This precaution
was taken because there  are always  some men  who cannot  stand
prosperity and  will blow their money for anything  they may 
LITTLE PILLS                     35
fancy, particularly for liquor, and quite a number of them were
likely to get drunk and be put in the guardhouse and cause delay
in getting away from the town.  It seems however, that some
of them  had money and those disposed to load up on "tangle-
foot" had borrowed enough to put themselves past good march-
ing condition, for at roll call preparatory to being paid off, some
were missing and came straggling into camp one at a time later on
in the  afternoon, one without shoes, hat or clothing, excepting
underwear, and one entirely naked. They had fallen out of ranks
and  taken a nap, and on trying to join the  command had been
held up by Mexicans. Of course their guns and  accountrements
had  gone with their clothing.  We were camped  where we could
see some distance  back along the road we had come and  it was
rather an odd sight to see the  men coming into camp  in that
condition.  It was quite ridiculous to see men in such uniforms,
or rather lack of them, come into camp, stand at attention and
salute when reporting to the commanding  officer.
     We followed the old  overland stage route from Santa Fe to
Fort Lyon, Colo., a distance of nearly three hundred miles. From
there it was some two hundred miles to our destination at Fort
Dodge.   There was little of interest on the way to  Fort  Lyons,
the  usual routine  of making and breaking camp and marching
during the day.  By this time the men were thoroughly hardened
to the march and the roads being good we made good time. It is
interesting to know that for a  distance of  one  thousand miles
men will beat horses.
     At Cimarron we waked up in the morning to find six inches
of snow  on the ground and at Wooton's just north  of the crest
of Raton Pass, we stayed two  or three days to have  transporta-
tion repaired.  I  hunted a little but as I was afraid to go far from
camp found nothing.  One evening while there, Mr. Krause and I
went down to Trinidad, a mining town of some importance in
those days with the usual equipment of saloons and gambling
halls. I had some  curiosity to see the later, so  we visited one.
It was located in a long room  a hundred feet or more in  length
by probably forty feet wide,  in  which -there were many  tables,
at most  of  which  were  men  engaged in  playing games.  The 
36
LITTLE  PILLS
poker players sat at small tables, four or five players around each
one, with stacks of  chips or money at their side, or perhaps a
buckskin sack containing gold dust, (for this was a placer mining
camp) which was  weighed out  as occasion  demanded  in the
fluctuations of the game.  At other tables dice were used, or balls
were rolled,  and the bets were made  as to  which little  pocket
they would enter.  Everything was quiet and orderly and serious-
ly business-like.  It  was a curious exhibition and to this  day I
do not understand the fascination that seems to be in it.
     At Trinidad we  were still a hundred miles or more from
Fort Lyons where I expected  to  meet my wife, and while  we
made exceptional progress for infantry it seemed all too slow for
me.  It was on the 25th of November  when we reached Fort
Lyons, and I had the great pleasure of seeing my wife and baby
boy again.  We  rested over  for two or three days at Fort Lyon
and then started on the last  long lap of nearly two hundred miles
down the Arkansas river to Fort Dodge, Kans.  We did not see
a habitation or a soul on the way except at one place where a man
was  standing at the roadside as we passed along.  He informed
us that he and his partner were there killing buffalo  and poison-
ing wolves  for their hides.  We found  an immense gray wolf
lying by the roadside and the men threw it on one of the wagons
and we left  it with the lone  hunter by the roadside.
    When pretty well down toward Fort Dodge,  I  had one of
the most exciting hunting experiences of  my  life.   Buffalo in
great numbers were  seen nearly all the way down and  I was
anxious to get a fine robe from an animal I had  killed myself.
My opportunity  occurred one afternoon after we had gone into
camp.  I saw a good sized herd leave the river and start back to
the high ground to graze, probably a mile or more away.   I did
not know  any better than to go on foot and alone.  It never oc-
curred to  me that there could be any danger.  The ground was
level as a floor and I got up within a hundred yards  or  less and
picked out a large black bull that I thought would furnish the
prize I was after, and fired.  At the crack of the rifle he started
for me and of course I turned and ran,  and ran for my very life.
I  thought how hopeless it looked for me, for the  camp seemed 
LITTLE  PILLS
37
far away, but I did my best.  Finally I could hear him close be-
hind me and while I expected every moment to be gored it oc-
curred that he was breathing heavily, and I kept the pace as best
I could until the breathing seemed less distinct and looking over
my shoulder I discovered that he had stopped  running and was
walking around and  around.  However, I kept going until I was
sure I was at a safe distance and then  fell on the ground and
lay there for a while.  My heart was beating like a trip-hammer.
I had  no notion then of giving up the contest and as he turned
broadside to me I fired and he started, and I started for another
race.   He did not make much headway this time and my courage
arose accordingly.  Pretty soon he stopped again and commenced
turning around.   He did not chase  me  again, but it took  the
fourth shot before he fell.  The rifles of those days  were very
different from the modern repeating rifles. This  was a breech
loader with only a single shot and it was necessary to raise up
what was called the breachblock by hand and insert the cartridge,
then replace the breachblock, cock the gun, and you were ready
for another shot.   Too slow a process when  a mad buffalo is
chasing you.
    I had been aiming for the heart but shot too  high  and  the
wound in the lungs had  caused the blood to  choke him so he
could not  keep up the pace.  All four of the shots went into  a
space not larger  than my hand and one of the bullets lodged
under  the skin on the opposite side which I was careful to keep
as a souvenir of  the chase. Some  of the enlisted men who had
gone out  to the  right for  a shot came to my assistance and
skinned the animal for me and carried the hide into camp.  They
assured me that the animal was certainly within ten or fifteen
feet of me at  one  time during our race.
    Another hunting incident occurred on our trip  down the val-
ley in  which I was  only  a  spectator.  Some men  had gone off
into the hills to get  a buffalo for the command. They had sep-
arated one from the herd and had wounded it and got the animal
turned in the direction so as to cross the road ahead  of the
command  When it came in sight our cook became enthused with
the idea of going out  and killing it  and  thus have some of the 
38
LITTLE PILLS
glorv of the chase.  He asked permission to take my riding mule
that followed behind the ambulance.  I readily gave my consent
and  watched the proceedings with a good deal of interest.  He
started away at full speed with a pistol in one hand swinging it
in anticipation  of a great victory.  All went well enough until
the mule got close to the game when I suppose he got a whiff of
an odor that did not  please him, for without slacking his pace
he turned and  never  stopped until he  was back in the rear of
the ambulance  again.  All this with  the rider making the most
frantic effort to get him into the fight.  He did not even get a
shot.  The buffalo was  killed near the road and loaded on one
of the wagons and taken into camp.
     Another little incident occurred on this trip that was quite
exciting for a few moments: We had camped near the river in
some very tall grass, blue-stem I think it was called, the company
some little distance away and to windward of headquarters. Some
way in starting their campfire, it got beyond their control,  and a
shout in that direction  gave as  warning.  I gathered  the baby
in my arms  and we  all ran for the river.  Fortunately there was
a sandbar extending out  from the bank and we jumped some four
or five feet  down to that, and huddled up against the bank until
the danger was past.  There was a strong wind blowing and it
was  all over in  a few  moments.   We  thought of the ammunition
wagon and  feared the results, but  the only  harm done was a
little scorching of my wife's side-saddle which  was under the
wagon. Only those who have seen a prairie fire in tall grass with
a stiff wind  blowing, can picture  the scene as it actually happen-
ed.   The ground was  swept  clean but was black with the  ashes
and stubble  of the burned grass..
    On arriving at  Fort Dodge we stayed  a few days waiting
for a surgeon  who  was returning from Fort  Larned  and who
accompanied us from  Fort Dodge to Fort Hayes, Kans.   While
at Fort Dodge  there was a dust  storm that continued for three
or four days, blowing a steady  gale during that  time.  Major
Morris was  commanding officer at that post and I remember a
lieutenant,  Phil Reed, who  was a  charming  and entertaining
talker at the table.   My recollection is that he was afterwards 
LITTLE PILLS
39
married to Minnie Reams, an actress of note at that time.  The
road from Fort Dodge to Fort Hayes was a very desolate one. By
starting early and  urging our  team along until after  dark we
came to a stream bordered by timber where we camped for the
night.   It was snowing very hard  when we reached camp and
by morning there were six or eight inches of snow on the ground.
The  road was so obscure in many places  that we  were doubtful
whether we were on the right road or on any  road at  all.  Not
a house or sign of life in all that  great white waste and  even
now I think of it as the most  desolate day of all  my life.  We
arrived at Fort Hayes after midnight of the second day,  and were
soon comfortably  located at Doctor HVteacham's   quarters  and
sound  asleep.  My  orders read to  accompany the command  to
Fort Dodge  and then proceed to St.  Louis, Mo., and report to the
medical director of the department which had been  changed from
Fort Leavenworth to that place.  We were now at the railroad
and  the worst of the long journey from Fort Craig, N. Mex., to
St. Louis was over.
     When in the ticket office at Fort Hayes arranging my trans-
portation, I  was introduced to one of  the most noted characters
on the frontier.  He was generally known as "Wild Bill," but his
name was Hickok and his brother  had been our  wagon master
from Fort Wingate to Fort  Dodge.  He did not look wild at  all
but  was a rather mild mannered and genteel looking fellow. He
had  long hair and wore  good  clothes and had nothing of the
appearance  of a desperado.
     The trip to St. Louis was uneventful. 
CHAPTER IV.
    On reporting to  the  medical  director at St.  Louis I was
ordered to Fort Sill, Indian Territory, (now Oklahoma)  by way
of railroad to Fort Scott, Kans., and thence by stage to my desti-
nation.  We arrived at  Fort  Scott, Kans., late in the evening.
This was theend of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Rail-
road at that time, and a booming town  The hotels were crowded
and we had great difficulty in finding a place to sleep, but finally
were located at what was called the Western Hotel where we
were fortunate enough to get a room for ourselves. Many were
compelled to sleep on cots or beds made down on the floor in sit-
ting rooms,  dining  rooms and parlors.
    The next morning I waded through deep snow some dist-
ance southeast of town to a soldiers' camp where Major Roy
was in command and  reported.  He informed me that  it would
be impossible for me to go by stage to Fort Sill, that the stages
had quit running on account of the deep snow, and that he would
order me back to St. Louis,  which he did.  We arrived in St.
Louis about the 20th of December, and stopped at the Lindell,  one
of the good hotels  in those  days.  The   controversy  between
Doctor Mills, the medical  director  and the department quarter-
master  was  quite amusing.   The  doctor ending up  by saying,
"You sent him the  only road he couldn't go."  It was decided I
should wait for a boat down the Mississippi and up the Arkansas
to Fort Smith, and  stage across country from there to Fort Sill.
    On my first arrival at St. Louis from the West I had gone to
see a furrier about tanning my buffalo hide and he informed me
it would require several days to put it in prime condition.  I went
to see him again on  our return to St. Louis and was told it would
probably be  ready by the time we would start to Fort Sill by
boat and that he would make a robe I would be proud of.   He sent
it to the boat the day before we left, and as it  seemed a little
damp, I spread it out  on the hurricane deck to dry.  As it dried
it became hard around the edges and I kept trimming away  the
hard parts, particularly those of the neck and legs until I had 
LITTLE PILLS
41
my robe in the shape of a parallelogram.  This was disappointing
but I still praised it as a souvenir of the chase.  We found it a
very great help in keeping us warm while in the stage from Fort
Smith to Fort Sill.  It disappeared one night while hanging out-
side of cur tent at Fort Sill which was only a camp at that time.
It had cost me  a  most thrilling experience  when first  getting
possession  of it  and then ten dollars to have it tanned, and now
after a short service it was gone and I concluded it was hardly
worth the ammunition.
    We were in St. Louis a week or more waiting  for the boat
to start and while  there  we had the pleasure of seeing Joseph
Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkle."   He was then in his prime and
although I have seen and heard him since in the same play it
did not appeal to  me in the same way it did at the first per-
formance.
    I think it  was the last day of December that we went on the
boat and started on our trip down the river the following evening.
It was a light craft, stern wheel boat, and I was amazed at the
vast quantity of freight that it carried. The trip down the Miss-
issippi was  without incident but we  had frequent delays on the
Arkansas unloading freight and crossing sandbars.   From Little
Rock to Fort Smith we tiecj up every night.  Most of the time up
the Arkansas a  man stood at the head of the boat taking sound-
ings.
    We were cordially received and entertained on our arrival at
Fort Smith by the post surgeon, Doctor Theibaut  and his family,
where we remained two or three days.
    We started from Fort Smith very early in the morning, about
four o'clock if I  remember rightly, and it  was very  cold.  In the
stage with us, was a deputy United  States marshal,  who told us
of the disastrous results attending those who brought liquor into
the country—confiscation of property, jail sentences, etc.  The
trouble with us was that we had a bottle of brandy with  us.  By
the time we stopped for breakfast my wife was thoroughly arous-
ed to the importance  of the  occasion and whispering to me ex-
pressed her fears.   I tried to assure her that it would be all right,
and that no one would  search an army officer's baggage, but it 
42
LITTLE PILLS
was of no use, and when the marshal was  out of sight I broke
the bottle  over  the fence  corner and went into  breakfast  as
though nothing had happened.  We learned afterwards that army
officers were permitted to bring it in for their own use and while
at Fort Sill I had some sent me with other  medical supplies.
    It was very cold fon a day or two and we had the stage to
ourselves after the marshal left us. I think it was  the following
night when we were in some  very rough mountainous country
that the driver stopped the stage and asked if I would get up on
the outside with him, explaining that his team was hard to  man-
age and that he might need  assistance, to which I readily consent-
ed.  The team was spirited  enough and we  went  along  at a
spinning gait.  I thought noticeably so for such rough roads and
I believe my wife  thought it was the ride of her life. After two
or three hours the driver said  he believed the team was settling
down and would probably not give any trouble and if I wished 1
could go back inside the stage  where  it was warmer.  I accepted
this suggestion promptly and  found  it much more comfortable.
The driver explained to me at the end of his division  that in the
rough country we  had passed  there were frequent hold-ups and
he thought someone ought  to sit with him to create  the impres-
sion that  the  stage was loaded and  highwaymen would be less
liable to attack it.
    The second day out we had dinner at the house of the  chief
of the Chickasaws, having  had breakfast at a freedman's house,
both of which were worth describing.  When we entered the house
for breakfast there were a few smoldering coals in the fireplace
although it was quite cold.  There was some wood by the chimney
and I stirred up the embers and put on some wood and soon had
a fire started. The table was  set in the next room, if  so called,
for it was only partly enclosed, so it was practically as cold as out
of doors.  On the table was some headcheese and cornbread, light
rolls and sweet potatoes, a\\ frozen so that the frost stood out on
them, and some black coffee and no cream or milk.  I  managed to
cut off a piece  of the headcheese and cornbread  and took my
coffee and went back to the fireplace to eat  and my wife soon fol-
lowed, making her breakfast  on some cookies we had brought 
LITTLE  PILLS
43
with us.  For this treat  we were  charged the modest  sum of
fifty cents each.  At dinner we had some fried pork, fried eggs
swimming in grease, and coffee similar to that we had at break-
fast, and cornbread and all at the same price.
    The evening of the third day we arrived at Fort Arbuckle
and were the guests  of Doctor Brewer  and family for two or
three days and  were most hospitably entertained.  From Fort
Arbuckle to Fort Sill we went in an army ambulance, the distance
being eighty to  a hundred miles.   We camped one night along
the road and I shot my first wild turkey at this camp.
    Fort Sill at that time was only a camp, but there was a saw-
mill on Cache creek a short distance below, where they were get-
ting out material for  permanent quarters,  barracks  and store-
houses.   The plan was for a six company post, and at that time
there were two companies of infantry and six troops of cavalry
stationed  there.   I reported on my arrival as usual  and  after
being settled in our tent, was assigned to duty by Doctor Forward,
the post surgeon.
    Doctor Forward was among the oldest assistant surgeons in
the service and I thought a little peculiar in some ways.  He was
dignified and cordial but after assigning me to duty I thought he
showed  little interest  in  the   service.   He would  call at my
quarters occasionally and  say that he wished to  go over to the
hospital and would look carefully over everything and would go
away simply remarking that everything was all right.  I  remem-
ber going to his  quarters one day and informing him that a man
by the name of  Fields in the hospital had fistula and  I thought
an operation necessary. He replied: "Can't you stick a knife in
it ?"   I told him  I thought I could and he came a few  days after
the operation and expressed his satisfaction at the results.  He
was promoted to a full surgency while I  was there and assigned
to a different post.  It is proper here to  say  that the  medical
officers  in the army are never addressed by their military title
or rank but always as doctor.  Although their military rank may
be that  of major (for full surgeon)  or captain or lieutenant  (for
assistant surgeon). 
44
LITTLE  PILLS
    General Grierson of note as a cavalry commander during the
Civil War was in command of the camp.  Our quarters consisted
of one hospital tent, fourteen by sixteen and two wall tents ten
by twelve for bed  room and dining room, and still back of that
was the kitchen which was used for servants' quarters.  All these
tents were framed to  hold them  in shape and as  a protection
against strong winds.
    Our first experience with what was called a "Norther," was
at this post. These usually occurred in the change of the seasons
from  cold to hot weather or the reverse.  They are typical, re-
sembling other storms only in their intensity.  They are always
preceded by  delightful weather. My first  experience was  in the
early  spring of 1870.  I was on the roof of the new commissary
building where  the quartermaster's employes  were putting on
shingles and one of them happened to look up  and  said, "Hello;
that looks like a Norther coming." The weather was quite warm
but ideally pleasant and he noticed my light clothing and said,
"You had better get   down off here and  hunt some heavier
clothes."  I followed his suggestion at once  and by the time  I
got to our quarters a half  mile away  I noticed the difference in
the temperature and in  a few  minutes it came on us in  all its
fury.  It is simply the coldest wind I  have ever experienced. It
blows straight and with a mighty force and is so penetrating that
one is thoroughly chilled in a few minutes. I have since learned
that it  often kills  cattle and other live stock down in Texas and
occasionally people who  are not properly clothed.  It  comes up
from the Northwest, a bank of clouds, not clearly outlined  but
hazy, I suppose from dust that gathers on the way.  Anyone who
has once experienced it  looks at its coming with dread and ap-
prehension.  We had two or three experiences with a "Norther"
at Fort Sill while  still in camp.  In one of these my wife and  I
both  braced ourselves against  the tent  frame to keep it from
blowing down.
    There were six companies  of colored troops of the Tenth
Cavalry of which  General Grierson was the colonel, stationed at
Fort Sill.  I did not see that they were very different from other
enlisted men. If anything they seemed to take more interest in 
LITTLE  PILLS
45
their personal appearance than the white  soldiers but were ac-
cused in the army as they are out of it, of petit larceny.  I had
one experience in the hospital that may be worth relating: A
trooper by the name of Stanley had shot the index finger off his
right hand, he claimed accidentally, but it  was thought by most
of the officers that it had been done  for the purpose of getting
a discharge from the service. I kept him as nurse in the hospital
as he was capable and did his work promptly and carefully and
we often had him come to, our quarters to stay with our little boy
when we were spending the  evening with our fellow officers and
their wives.   I  had frequently missed small  change and  little
things of no great value but he  would deny  any knowledge of
them with such apparent candor and honesty that my suspicions
were  allayed.  One morning, however, when attending sick calls
at the hospital the hospital steward  informed  me that Stanton
was discovered taking money from under the pillow of one of the
sick men during the night.  I sent for  him and explained the mat-
ter to him for I was really disposed to let him off as easy as pos-
sible. He denied any knowledge of it, so I said to him: "Now look
here Stanton, the evidence is too strong against you,  you go and
give Fields his money and behave yourself hereafter and  I will
let the matter drop.  You are a  good man and I would like to
keep you."  He looked me straight in the  face and said:  "Fore
God, Doctor, I never did take that money."   I sent the steward's
assistant over to the guardhouse  with orders to the sergeant of
the guard to send a man over to take charge of a prisoner. A
corporal came  and I explained the matter to him and I directed
him to take Stanton to the guardhouse and to tell the sergeant
of the guard that I wanted  him to get that money and for him
to resort to any means necessary to get it, even if he had to tie
the prisoner up by the thumbs.  This is of course a very severe
punishment, and consisted of using a  very strong cord, the ends
of which  are looped over each thumb and then thrown over a
crossbar a short distance above the prisoner's head and drawing
him up, if necessary, off the ground.  When I got through my
hospital duties and was on my way to my quarters I heard the
howling of the prisoner at the guardhouse and stopped where I 
46
LITTLE PILLS
had a good view and watched the results with interest.  Stanton
was protesting his innocence, and the sergeant's orders  were "pull
him up a little higher."  It  did not take long for Stanton to see
his mistake, for he said, "Let me down and I will tell you where
it is."  "No you don't.  Tell me first where it  is, then I will let
you down."   Stanton said, "It's in the lining  of my  cap." And
sure enough there was the  ten dollars.  The result was that  a
courtmartial gave him six months with "ball and chain." I think
this occurrence illustrates one of the characteristic traits of the
colored race, and to me it is remarkable that he would have taken
such a course when he was offered the chance of taking one that
in every way would have been  so much better  for himself. 
CHAPTER V.
    Fort Sill was the first post at which I had any experience
with Indians.  It was located on what was then called the Kiowa
and Commanche reservation near the junction of Cache and Medi-
cine Bluff creeks.  Mount Scott, the highest point of the Wichita
mountains was some nine miles to the northwest and both places
had been geographically located  and were  used as  a base for
triangulation in locating other points.   These tribes of Plains
Indinas  were famous  fighters and  were finally  subdued and
brought to terms by Custer's great battle on the Washita.  They
were very numerous and there was always a feeling that an out-
break might occur at any time. During my service there from Jan-
uary, 1870, to August, 1871, there were seventeen men brought
in and buried who had been  killed and scalped by Indians.  They
would  not attack a large party of men in soldier's uniform but
boot-leggers and stragglers stood a poor show if caught out alone.
Once while there a woman, one girl sixteen or seventeen years old,
and one  about twelve years  old, and  two smaller  ones  and  two
boys, one of whom belonged to another family, were brought into
the camp on the promise of a hunded dollars apiece ransom. They
were from Texas and at their homes  when attacked  by Indians,
and the men were killed and these people brought away captives.
If attempt had been made to recover them by force  they would
have been killed
    I once saw Lone  Wolf,  a Comanche chief, with a United
States mail sack of  leather on his pony, and the interpreter, Mr.
Jones,  told me that he and  some of the other young bucks  had
been on a raid down in Texas and among other depredations they
had killed the mail  carrier and destroyed the mail, only keeping
the sack for  his own use.   I saw him frequently with  it after-
wards.  Mr. Jones told me that Lone Wolf had said that his heart
felt better1 now, as he had avenged the death  of his son  who had
been killed on one of their/raids in Texas.   These  raids were of
frequent occurrence, and there was  generally some  evidence of
them in the wearing apparel  or trinkets, or anything  the Indians 
48
LITTLE PILLS
might fancy, and that had evidently belonged to some settlers or
travelers who had been so unfortunate as to come in their way.
But so far as I know, they never killed a soldier.
    I have witnessed from the bluff near the hospital on Medicine
Bluff creek their dances in the valley just across the streams at
night, many times, but, never had any desire to make a closer ac-
quaintance.  It always  seemed to me a wild kind of a  thing,
consisting  of jumping and  gyratting and  stooping and gliding
and then straightening up suddenly, and swinging the arms, and
all the time droning in short jerky cough-like notes, interspersed
with sharp penetrating yells.  There might be only one performer
or maybe a half  dozen or more.  Where there is a number en-
gaged, it is not only exciting but decidedly  wild, certainly  unlike
any other dance I have ever  seen.
    They were great thieves and anything left outside of our
tents  which  might strike their  fancy was  liable to be carried
off.  One day a squaw brought a venison ham to our tent to sell.
The regular price was fifty cents and I bought it although we had
bought one less than an, hour before,  and when taking it back to
hang up with the first one I thought the squaw looked very much
like the one from whom I had made the first purchase, and was
not much surprised to find  the first ham missing.  We usually
hung  them out for a while to get the Indian odor off them, and
I have no doubt that I bought the* same ham from the same squaw
the second  time.
    There were fixed days each month on which rations were is-
sued to the Indians by  the  commissary department and I have
seen the squaws carry sacks of flour  a little distance away from
the place  of issue and empty  out  the  flour  and carry off
the sacks, hundreds of them, so that the ground for  a consider-
ably distance around would be literally white with flour.
    They were permitted to go about  the camp any where during
the day, but at sundown scarcely an  Indian  was to be seen and
none were permitted in camp at night.
    It was a very comfortable feeling to hear the hours  called
at night, by those on guard if one should happen to wake up
and hear the announcement that "All's well." For instance, the 
                      MEDICINE BLUFF
The original of this picture is in  our possession, and was taken by
            Soule, of Boston, when we were stationed
                           at Fort Sill 
 
LITTLE PILLS
49
sergeant of the guard announces in a loud enough voice to be
heard  by the first  sentinel, "Two o'clock  and all's  well."  On
hearing it the sentinel repeats the message, and so on  around
the camp,  and when the last sentinel has finished, the sergant
of the guard says, "Two o'clock and all's well all around."  This is
repeated each hour during the  night.
    A very different announcement is the long roll of the drums
which  happened twice while we were at this camp.  It is  the
alarm to awaken the camp, and made by rapid and long continued
beating of the drum without break or stop until the  garrison is
fully aroused.  The assembly call by the  bugle  of the cavalry,
takes the place of the long roll  of the drum for the infantry, and
the two  together,  and the clanking of  arms, and the orders to
"Fall in," "Fall in,"  "Fall in," makes an exceedingly interesting,
not to say exciting experience.  If you are quick in getting  out
of your  tent you  may see the  officers  scurrying  across  the
parade ground to their command, fastening on their clothes  as
they go and soon everything is in order for whatever may happen.
The women and children in these cases, hurry with all possible
speed, to a place of safety.  At  this camp it was always at Major
Van  De  Weile's quarters,  some of them very scantily clothed,
generally with some kind of wrap over their night clothes, but it
was not cold weather, and any way what did it  signify in such
an emergency.  The major's quarters were what was called a
"hakel" building and the only one in camp better than  a tent
except General  Grierson's  that  offered any protection.   Such
buildings are made  by standing posts on end in the ground and
as close together as possible and filling in the cracks with mortar
and pieces of boards or anything suitable, and the inside is then
plastered up along the cracks until it makes a fairly smooth wall
and is then whitewashed and makes comfortable quarters but not
a first class protection against  rifle bullets.  They would huddle
together and talk in undertones as to what might happen until
the report came that it was a false alarm.  In both these instances
it proved to be so, but the anxiety and  excitement was just as
real as if the results had, been different.  Probably some nervous
sentinel had fired his gun at what he supposed to be an  Indian
\}? C «J 
50                    LITTLE PILLS
crawling toward him, but that may have been only a dog or some
other animal, or it may have been purely his imagination.  Any
one who has not gone through such an experience cannot imagine
its uncanny  quality as the Scotch would express it.  It is a very
vivid impression with me today after more than forty years.
    We remained under more or less strain  of anxiety until the
new quarters were finished  or enough of it so  that we could
crowd into them.   Officers take quarters according to rank, and
it not infrequently happens  that one will  have to vacate his
quarters and give place to another who outranks him, the rank-
ing officer having this right  and  as a rule he does  not hesitate
to use it although he may be a single man and the man displaced
be a man of family. This is so well understood and so graciously
accepted that there is seldom any feeling or resentment about it.
    In our own case we had to occupy quarters with another of-
ficer  and his wife, Mr. Spencer  of the  Tenth cavalry, and  this
reminds  me of  an experience we had that shows something of
the Indian character.  We had for some time previous to this, a
Cherokee Indian woman employed as  servant. She probably had
a little negro blood in her veins as her long black hair was slight-
ly wavy, but in every other way  she was typically Indian.   She
was exceedingly neat and clean and a thorough housekeeper and
an exceptionally good cook and a most devoted servant, but she
would take orders from no one except my wife. Soon after going
into our  new quarters she informed my wife that she was going
to leave us, and this she did, knowing full well that she could not
remain at the post if she did ss.  My wife was surprised and so
expressed herself and also her sorrow at having her go, but no
inducement  she could offer had  any effect  on this high-strung
woman.  She cleaned out the stove and put in the kindling and
had everything neat and clean as possible before leaving.  It de-
veloped afterwards that she  was offended at some orders given
her by Mrs. Spencer.
    Another little incident will show the Indian blood:  One of
the colored sergeants took quite  a fancy to her and would often
stand in the door and talk to her,  which was all well enongh with
Charlotte until  she wanted him to go.   I think on this occasion 
LITTLE  PILLS
51
he was disposd to nag her about something, for I overheard her
say in a  loud and angry tone, "Now you go, I won't talk to you
again. Go now!"   I hurried to the kitchen and opened the door
just in time to see the butcherknife sticking in the outside door-
jam and  still vibrating from the force that sent it.  The sergeant
had jumped in time, but Charlotte was furious. When I asked,
"Why, Charlotte, what is the matter?" she simply replied, "Next
time I tell that nigger to go I guess he will go." I frequently
though  how  near we came  to having another patient in the
hospital.
     I will relate one or two other instances that occurred while
we were stationed here that may  be interesting:  My wife had
the only sewing machine in the camp and one  day  Satana, the
war chief of the Kiowas, was passing down the line of officers'
quarters  and  heard the hum  of the  sewing  machine. It  was
summer  time  and the door was open so he  stalked in and sat
down without any ceremony or sign of recognition and watched
my wife sewing.  He was evidently very much interested but
gave no  evidence of it by word or  look. He remained for quite a
while observing the performance intently and then  got up  and
said,  "Adois!" and  stalked out again.  He  made several calls
afterwards and went through the same performance each time
until I suppose he became satisfied for his visits ceased. He was
the  finest  specimen of an fyidian  I ever saw;  very large, well
proportioned, with a remarkably forceful expression  of face and
walked with a dignity becoming a prince.
   .  Adjacent to the sutler's store was a large corral enclosed by
a  high stockade, inside of which  were the necessary buildings
for storage, stables, etc.,  and near the front of this corral  and
on a line with the store  was the  houses for the  clerks, a  few
feet back from the stockade.  In front of each house was a small
gate which was always closed at night but often kept open during
the day.  In the summer the front doors were also left open.   One
day a tall, rather handsome Indian,  that I had often noticed about
the camp, and  who was something of a "dandy" in dress, hap-
pened to be passing  and  happened to catch  his reflection in a
large mirror on the dresser that stood in line with the door and 
52
LITTLE PILLS
gate.  He immediately marched in without looking right or left,
made a thorough survey of himself in the glass then turned and
walked out saying "How" to Mrs. Rector, who was sitting in the
room during this rather unceremonious call.
    I had a little  experience one day with Stumbling Bear, a
subchief  of the Kiowas that at that time made me a little nervous
and I have since thought with little reason. I was returning from
a duck hunt up Medicine  Bluff creek and  was  a short distance
above the bluff that gave it its name  when Stumbling Bear came
up behind me, and we talked a little and I offered him some ducks
which he took, and soon rode ahead.  I knew of a little canon
that broke its way down  to the stream a little distance ahead
and across which the trail must lead.  For some reason which I
cannot explain, I thought it best to wait  until he came up on
the other side of the canon. This canon opened out into the river
valley and from my position I could see the valley thoroughly. He
did not come  upon the opposite side as I expected,  and I felt
equally sure that he did not go down the canon and come out in
the valley. He had his rifle with him and of course  could have
killed me as he came up behind, if he had wished to do so, but I
was nervous about him not showing  up on the opposite side  of
the canon, and so I concluded to make a detour around theh ead
of the  canon and out of gunshot range, and went on my way to
camp. That he could have  gotten out  of there without my seeing
him still  seems to me impossible, and why he should stay in there
until I had gone seems equally unaccountable.  Any way I did
not see him again  for  several  days when he rode into camp .as
usual.
    The  Indian agency was located just outside the military res-
ervation, some five or six miles down the creek from the  fort.
Colonel Boone, a nephew of Daniel Boone of frontier fame, was
Indian  agent when we arrived  at the camp but was succeeded
the following spring by an appointee under a new ruling of the
Interior Department.  Colonel Boone  was a very large man and
his wife  was quite below  the average sized  woman.   I mention
him here only because we were mutual friends, but  also of at
least one commendable trait of Indian  character that is  illustrated 
LITTLE PILLS
53
by their journey back to their ranch in Colorado.  The colonel
had decided, much against our protestations of the dangers, to
go across the country, which to us seemed to be wilfully sacrific-
ing  their  lives; but  he insisted  that he  would  send up to
the chief of the Arapahoes, whose name I have forgotten, and if
he thought it fairly safe and would send an escort, he certainly
would take the chances.
    The escort came in a few days and they were certainly a
fine looking lot of fellows, being extra well mounted and equipped
and  I felt sure that they would give  a good  account of them-
selves in case of trouble and the colonel assured us that the last
one of them would  die in defense  of himself and wife if neces-
sary.  So, we said bood-bye to them with some misgivings, but
with a  strong hope that they would make the journey  safely. I
got a letter from the colonel some months later announcing their
safe arrival home, and praising the fidelity and other good quali-
ties of  his Indian escort.  It  was  refreshing  to hear and know
something good of Indians that had so much that was bad to their
credit.
     I am quite convinced that any  Indian appreciates justice and
 a square deal as much as we do, and  recognizes force  and  sub-
mits  to  it quickly enough, if tempered with justice, but he  does
not understand moral suasion  as we  understand it.  I think  that
his conception of it is cowardice.   He cannot comprehend  why
one should return good for evil but believes in an eye for an eye
 and  he  faithfully carries it  out in  practice.  He believes in all
kinds of ghosts and spirits, good and bad, and his life is largely
shaped by this belief.
     A story Mr. Jones told me one day will illustrate  their prac-
 tical view of things: Mr. Jones had married a squaw and some of
the chiefs were at  his house  for dinner that  day.  He  tried to
 explain  to them our Bible history of how sin came into the world,
 and  they listened  intently, and without interruption,  until he
 had  finished. Then one old chief spoke up aid  said, 'That is just
 like a white woman.  Now if  that had been a squaw, she would
 have taken a  stick and  killed that snake,  and  saved all  the
 trouble." And while it may sound funny it was not intended as 
54                     LITTLE PILLS
levity or anything like a joke, but was said in all seriousness.  He
evidently did not grasp our interpretation of it in any way, but
on the contrary he looked on the woman's actions as cowardly
and inexcusable. 
CHAPTER IV.
    During General Grant's first term as President, the Indian
agencies were put in the hands of the representatives of the fol-
lowing churches, namely: Congregational,  Presbyterian, Catho-
lic, Dutch Reform, Episcopal, Methodist,  Baptist, Unitarian, and
the two branches of Friends. This was brought about by a reso-
lution on January 13th,  1871  at a conference of the President,
the board of Indian commissioners and the official representatives
of the  religious  bodies  above  mentioned.  This was  considered
at the time as the President's policy  and was  something of a
surprise to many army officers. But there was no marked criti-
cism, most of them believing that if the management of Indian
affairs  could  not be  in the hands of the  war  department,  it
Would have as good a chance of being honestly  managd by rep-
resentatives of the churches as in any other way.
    The Kiowa  and Commanche agency was  put in  the  hands
of a Mr. Tatum, a Quaker and most estimable gentleman, but
I afterwards thought he as illy understood the Indian character
as the  Indians  did the  peace  loving  creed  of the Quaker per-
suasion.  He was unfortunate in being found in his shirt sleeves
and at work, when the first delegation of the Bndian chiefs went
to the agency to see him, and from that time was spoken of by
the Indians as the squaw agent.  They could see nothing elevat-
ing or even respectable in a man working, that being the squaw's
duties, and had little  respect for the agent afterwards, although
he did the best he could for them.
    Mr. Tatum thought it would be better for the Indians to live
in houses  like white  people, instead  of  in tents,  and proposed
building them houses, and some of the chiefs agreed to occupy
them. He  at  once  got busy and built  six or  seven neat log
houses in the timber a few miles north of the camp. The Indians
moved in ais they had agreed and it was reported that some of
them put their tepees up inside the houses. Of  course they did
not stay long in such an unnatural place,  and when  I saw the 
56
LITTLE PILLS
houses some time afterwards, there was no  evidence of recent
occupation.
    He also established a school for Indian children at the agency,
and I think it was patronized by  some of the Indians  sending
their children, but up  until the  time we left the  post, the at-
tendance was small.  We cannot tell what the eventual results of
these honest efforts to do go may be.
    One  of the  most interesting places about the  camp to me
was  Mr.  Orleman's office.  He  was a West Point graduate,  a
lieutenant  in one of the companies at the camp,  and was the
engineer  under  Major Rockwell, who  had charge  of  the con-
struction of the  new post. Maybe my everlasting desire to know
things interested him,  for he was very kind  in showing me his
instruments and explaining their uses.  I was a frequent caller
at his office and he always seemed glad to  see me. I mention
this more particularly from the  fact that in  the spring of 1871
there was a part of the garrison, I think two troops of cavalry
sent to establish a camp on or near the junction of Cache creek
and Red river, and I was ordered to make a survey of the route
and distance. I had never done such a thing and was more than
doubtful  of my  ability to do it  properly,  so  I went to  see Mr.
Orleman about it.  He said, "Oh, you can do it as  well as any-
body.  I have explained these instruments, and how to use them;
of course you can do  it."f  And  that settled  it.  It was simple
enough after all.  A meter is fastened  to  the  hub and  spoke
of one of the rear wheels of the ambulance, the hand pointing
down and with a weight 0(n the end of it to hold it steady over
rough ground. A clockwork inside records the revolutions of the
wheel. In  other words,  the  clock  goes around  instead  of the
hand, and by knowing the circumference of the wheel it is easy
then  to  calculate the distance  traveled.  The  compass  and
tripods were not so easy, but a little practice before starting gave
me some confidence. The zig-zag course  we had to take to get
around the head of the canons and to avoid rough ground where
the ambulance could not go, were the principal difficulties, but
by recording the degrees of each cange of  direction one gets
fairly good results. Mr. Orleman  came down some time  after we 
LITTLE  PILLS
57
had established tht camp, and corrected the survey by triangu-
lation, and complimented me on missing the location  less  than
one-fourth of a mile in a distance of more  than forty-five miles
traveled.
    From this camp I was  ordered to make a topographical sur-
vey to the junction of the North fork of the Red river with the
main  stream, a distance of about one hundred miles by  the route
we  took along the river.  Mr. Spencer with a detachment  of
about  thirty troopers  was sent with  me  as  an escort.   This
kind of survey did not pretend to be accurate but was intended to
observe and record the principal features  of the country,  such
as canons, high points of land, valleys and table lands,  and to
estimate the altitudes  and distance.  The compass was the only
instrument used  on this trip.   We  arrived at  our destination
about the middle of the  forenoon of the third day and crossed
the North fork and went into camp  at the junction of the two
streams.  There was a^i immense cottonwood tree just  on the
bank  where the two streams united  and we  conceived the idea
of marking our names and date  on it,  supposing that we might
be the first white people in that locality.  After the  work was
done I suggested that we have a picket pin heated and burn the
letters to keep them from healing over so  soon, but we  discov-
ered there were no matches  in the command to start a fire, a
piece  of carelessness that  we thought inexcusable. It occurred
to  me that the  medical  panniers  are  always  provided  with
matches and on investigation   I found  a little box of  wax
matches and we soon had a fire started.  When we had seared
the letters over thoroughly we were quite  pleased with the re-
sult and if that tree is still standing it will probably show some
marks of the vandal hands that scarred its magnificent body.
I remember the dinner that day among other good dinners that
I have  had on  my hunting trips.  We had buffalo hump and I
thought it at that time the best thing I had ever tasted.
    The country from our camp at  the mouth of Cache creek
to the junction of North fork and the main sream of Red  river
is made up mostly of wide valleys and high table lands called
mesa  in Spanish,  These vary in extent from a mile  or  less to 
58
LITTLE  PILLS
 several miles and near the river  the  country  is broken  up by
 frequent canons.  It was a beautiful country to look  at  but it
 was, of course, entirely uninhabited except by  prairie  dogs and
 wild game and buffalo were plentiful, and I recall one  bunch of
 wild horses.
    We came on them  unawares,  going up from a  wide  valley
 to a mesa or table land, and  they were grazing some three or
 four hundred yards from the edge of the mesa. It was astonish-
 ing how quickly they were bunched up, the colts in  the middle,
 the mares on the flanks and the stallions in the  lead,  going
 full speed to get away.  When we  came to the edge of  the mesa
 again they had crossed  a wide valley and were going up on an-
 ther mesa several  miles  away still at  full  speed.  They  were
 a beautiful bunch of animals, a reddish roan in color, long tails
 and manes, and in size much larger than the Indian  ponies, but
 were of a pony build and smaller than our best roadsters.
    Prairie dog villages were numerous.  We went through one
 that must have been four or five miless in extent.
    We had an early dinner  that day, and concluded to start
 on our return march, and about five o'clock in the evening we
 came  to a pretty little  valley  with numerous water holes and
 some dead timber and went into camp.
    I took my shotgun and was having some  good  sport with
 the ducks  when Mr.  Spencer's  orderly  came to me and  said,
 "the lieutenant's compliments and he would like  some matches to
 start a fire."  I replied, 'give the lieutenant my compliments
 and tell him 1} gave the matches to the trooper to start a fire to
 heat the picket pins, and have not seen them since."   When
 I returned to camp and was within hearing distance I  saw two
 men riding away and heard Mr. Spencer hallow and say,  "Cor-
 poral, it will  be about midnight when you get back, and we will
 have a bonfire on the  hill for you as a guide to our camp."
 When I got close enough I said, "Spertcer, how are you going to
 get a fire?"  and then it dawned  on him  that  we  had   no
matches.  "My God," h said, "I  never thought of that."  But the
 men had gone at full gallop and we let them go.  I  thought of 
LITTLE  PILLS
59
the powder I used in my shotgun and thought I would try  an
experiment.  That was when muzzle loaders were still in vogue,
the breechloader  not  having come into general  use, and I cut
a hole in the lining of my coat where it was padded about the
shoulders  and took out some  cotton wadding which  I tamped
lightly down on  the  powder in the gun.  At first I had too
much powder and it would not work but after a few trials the
wadding caught fire and with some dry sticks for  kindling we
soon had a fire under way and Mr. Spencer had his bonfire on
the hill that night. The corporal and the careless troopers who
had left the matches  at our midday camp returned  before mid-
night having made the  round trip of about twenty-eight miles
for a little box of matches.
    The following day was uneventful until toward night. Some
troopers who had permission were out hunting.  We had heard
a shot occasionally but attached no importance to it, but late in
the afternoon an Indian or two were seen off on the hills to the
north and in a little  while they  became numerous  enough  to
create some apprehension.   It  developed that one  of  the fool
troopers had taken a shot at one of them, but fortunately had
missed him and by nightfall there were great numbers of them
in sight.
    We soon found a little water hole and  went into camp and
made the best preparation we could for  trouble if it came.  We
got everything close  about the  water supply  and  the horses
lariated close around  us and awaited results. Soon the advance
guard of the Indians  appeared in perfect alignment silhouetted
against the  western sky and Mr. Spencer  with  two men went
out to meet  them.  Explanations and  apologies followed,  but
before the parley was over they  informed  Mr. Spencer that if
they had  found us to have been soldiers from Texas they in-
tended to  make a clean sweep of it, but as we were from Fort
Sill they wanted to be friends.  I have often thought it was for-
tunate for us that we were from Fort Sill, as they outnumbered
us twenty or more to one.  We waited a half hour or more after
they had gone and then quietly mounted and rode away, not a
man saying  a word until we felt that we  were out of danger. 
60
LITTLE PILLS
We camped  again about midnight and  saw no more  of the In-
dians.
    The following morning I had taken my gun and gone ahead
a mile or so and came down off the mesa and found a pony in
the valley below. I rode up to it and tried to catch it but it would
not allow me to get  close enough. I then waited until the com-
mand came up.  The column marching in twos separated at the
order right and left  oblique march and made  a V shape  that
surrounded the pony and we took him along with us.  We soon
came to the trail where the Indians had crossed, a very wide one,
showing  that  great  numbers had passed.  There were  other
evidences of their having been on a raid in Texas; some bed
ticking and  feathers, some pieces of  clothing, evidently taken
from some settler whom they had probably murdered and scalp-
ed.  The pony had a sore back and had evidently been abandoned
as useless and a hindrance on their march.
     Although it was  a long day's march we concluded to try and
make the camp at Cache creek that night, which we did, getting
in very late.  We had come by  compass directly across country
from the junctipn of the two forks of Red river instead of follow-
ing the stream as we did going up.
     We captured a young antelope, the last day out,  and one of
the troopers carried it on  the saddle in front of him into camp.
It lived until we were back at Fort Sill some time, but that kind
of life was too hard for it and it gave up the struggle.
     There was plenty of game  in the country around the camp
at Cache creek.  Turkeys were very abundant and duck shooting
was good in season, and the fishing was fine.   I have always re-
gretted my impulsive disposition when thinking of my first shot
at turkeys near this camp.  When the command was nearing the
mouth of Cache creek from Fort Sill,  I had  taken my last ob-
servation with the compass and directed the ambulance driver to
a point indicated, and went ahead of the command to select the
camp.  Having decided on a desirable place I went down stream
a  little distance and heard some turkeys  making a great ado
about  something.  I got down on a sand  bar and slipped along
the river bank until I thought I  was at the right place for a shot. 
LITTLE PILLS
61
On looking over the bank I discovered  that there was  quite a
bunch of turkeys standing around in a circle and making a great
chatter. I fired into them without waiting to see what caused
such a commotion, and when I was near where two of them lay
an immense diamond rattler uncoiled and glided  away.   What
would have happened if I had waited?  Would the turkeys have
killed the snake, or the snake some of the turkeys, or would the
turkeys have gotten tired of the game and quit?  I have often
asked myself these  questions.  Does anybody know?   If so I
would like to hear their comment.  While in that camp we killed
two diamond rattlers, one six  feet and  the other  six feet, four
inches in length.   It may be that one of them was among my
first acquaintances in that camp.
    There was a turkey roost some three mies above camp where
we generally got our supply of turkeys.  A young son of  General
Grierson, having returned from school for his summer vacation,
came down to our camp, and was enthusiastic for a visit to the
turkey roost, so we arranged  to go  the following evening, and
got permission to take a couple of troop horses for the purpose,
a  thing  not provided for in  the regulations.  When we  had
reached the timber we left the trail and hunted for a secure place
to tie our horses,  as dense a thicket as we could find.  We found
a place where we thought they would be secure and from there
walked to the roost, a short distance away,  and  sat down and
waited for the birds to  come h%  We did not have long to wait
until we could  hear the sound of wings, and they commenced
lighting  in the  tree tops above us.  We waited until they were
well settled before shooting.  It had been a warm day  and by
this time was murky and getting quite dark, and we had diffi-
culty in marking our birds, but we soon  had four handsome ones
and  gathered them up  and  started to  find our horses.  I was
confident I had observed closely the directions and distance we
had gone from the trail and also from the horses to the roost, but
we failed to find them where we expected. It was pitch  dark by
this time and very still and we tramped the neighborhood where
we thought we had left them, and then sat  down and waited,
hoping they might neigh or make some  noise  and  thus guide us 
62
LITTLE  PILLS
to them.  When this failed we went to the trail and by lighting
matches found where we had left it, and from there we followed
the course that we thought would  take us to the thicket where
we had left the horses.  We found it, or thought we had, and
tramped it over toroughly without  finding them. We carried our
guns and turkeys with us, not  daring to put them down for fear
we would lose them.  We finally concluded some thieving Indians
had watched us and  had followed us into the timber and stolen
our horses, and  so we started for  the  camp on foot.  It was  a
hot, sultry night and I soon began to think three turkeys and  a
shotgun a good deal of a load  and when I inquired of my com-
panion how he was making it  he admitted that  he was getting
a little tired. We rested a little bit and started again, I having
taken his  bird,  much against his protest, and by frequent rests
on the way we  got into camp  between ten and eleven o'clock,  a
very tired pair of hunters.  I sent for the sargeant of the guard
and told him I wished to be awakened at four o'clock in the morn-
ing.  The  young lad insisted that he would go with  me but I told
him no, that he was too tired and had better sleep and that  I
could  get  the horses if they were  there.  At four o'clock, how-
ever, he was up as quick as I was and we were soon on the way
afoot  to the turkey roost.  We found the horses just where we
had tied them  and I felt greatly  relieved, not only because it
saved me the price of two valuable horses but because it saved the
captain of the company who loaned them,  as  well as myself,  a
severe reprimand.  I came to  have a great admiration for the
pluck and manliness  of my young hunter friend, and if he is an
officer in the service now,  as many of the sons of my army ac-
quaintances  are, and he should ever see this story of army life
on the frontier, I wish here and now to present him my compli-
ments, and would like to hear from him.
    We had an abundance of fish while at this camp. The quar-
termaster had built us a little  boat so we could stretch trotlines
across the stream and we  not only had  the officers' mess well
supplied but often had plenty  for the men of the command.
    A few days after  we had  returned from the North fork  or
Red river, Captain Norvel's troop of cavalry was ordered out on 
LITTLE  PILLS
63
a scout down the valley on the north side of the river, and I was
ordered to accompany the command.  We started late  in  the
afternoon and by  evening  it commenced a drizzling  rain.  We
went into camp about dark but did not unwrap our blankets as
expected to be out some days and did not wish them to get wet.
The blankets in a scout like this are made into a roll and wrapped
in a poncho  or oil cloth covering and fastened up against  the
cantle of the saddle by straps which are always a part of  the
equipment of the  army saddle.   The captain and I placed  our
rolls of blankets at the foot  of a big tree  and with our water-
proof to protect us against the rain, sat down on them until  the
shower should be over. It never let up raining during the whole
night, and there we sat dozing and  talking  by spells untn morn-
ing.  Soon after daylight a messenger arrived with orders to re-
turn to camp.
    We found  nearly everything ready  for the return  trip to
Fort Sill and were soon on  the way.  We had  already heard that
General Sherman  and staff.  Colonels Marcey, Audenried and
Tourtellotte,  were there on an inspection  trip of the military
posts of  the west.  They  had come by way of Texas and were
fully informed  of  the doings of the large band of Indians with
whom we had our little pow-wow and whose  horse we had cap-
tured, and whose trail we  had crossed on our  return from  the
north fork of Red river to  the camp on Cache creek.  They had
also  learned  that  they  came very near being in line with  the
depradations committed.  This band had not only burned houses
and killed settlers but had also captured a government wagon
train and had tied the teamster to the wagon and  having looted
the train of all they wanted, burned the teamsters with  the
wagons  and  contents.  The young bucks on their return to  the
reservation,  and feeling  secure at Fort Sill had bragged about it.
The names of the leaders in the raid were known and the matter
could not be  overlooked  by General  Grierson,  but he was power-
less without the authority of Mr. Tatum, the Indian agent. This
always struck me as a ridiculous phase of our Indian policy.
    It was a universal feeling in the army that the war  depart-
ment should  have  the exclusive control and management of  the 
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LITTLE PILLS
Indian problems, instead of the interior department, but I  sup-
pose politics, the bane of the country in so many ways, ruled in
Washington then as it does now, and it was to the interests of
the politicians to  have it where it was.  General  Grant was at
this  time President and had served as a young army officer on
the frontier and knew better.  The Republicans were in control
of congress but it would  have been the same with any other
political party in control, and was probably the worst that could
have been done. Mr. Tatum was fully informed of the raid and
the leaders in it, and called for a pow-wow at General Grierson's
quarters.  A number of Indian chiefs came in to talk the matter
over,  among them  being Satanta,  the war chief of the  Kiowas;
Big Tree,  a young chief of the same tribe, and Satank, an old
and wizzened up and vicious looking Indian,  and  council chief
among the Kiowas; all known  to have been in the raid.  There
was  a heavy guard standing around the quarters ready for any
emergency.  Mr.  Tatum  had  demanded  the  surrender of   the
guilty parties.  While the  pow-wow was in progress Lone Wolf,
chief of the Comanches, came among them, a rifle in each hand,
and a couple of bows and a quiver full of arrows swung over his
back. I suppose it  was a pre-concerted  arrangement among the
Indians for he handed one gun to an  Indian  near him, and a
couple of Indians behind him grabbed the bows and arrows  and
in an instant these were pointed at the breast of Mr.  Tatum,
General Grierson,  General  Sherman, and other officers present.
I suppose  the click, click, click of the rifles as  the  guard cocked
and brought them  to shoulder, gave Lone Wolf a better under-
standing of the bloody work at hand, for he raised one hand and
said 'No shoot! No shoot!" and  by the interpreter explained
that it was only a joke and that he did not intend to hurt  any-
body.  Tht interpreter reported afterwards that he  had also  said
when presenting these guns to the breasts of those men men-
tioned, "Now  let  these men go  and we can  fix  things  up all
right."  During the excitement Big Tree broke away from the
crowd and mounted a horse near by, and tried  to escape but the
garrison was  wide  awake to the condition of things, and after a
shot or two he surrendered.  He and Satanta  and Satank  were 
LITTLE  PILLS
65
put in the guard-house, a newly built one at the new post, and a
strong guard placed about the building, until they were removed
to Texas to be tried by the civil authorities.
    We arrived at Fort Sill from our camp on Cache creek a day
or two after  these occurrences but I got the details of the inci-
dent from officers present and from my wife who remembers
them better than I do. Promptly after the depredations had been
committeed General Mackenzie of the Department of Texas with
several troops of cavalry got on the trail of these Indians and had
followed it up into the territory and  into the Wichita  mountains
and from there to Fort Sill and arrived at the  post shortly after
our return from camp.
    After resting his troops for a few  days General  Mackenzie
was ready for the march back to Texas with his prisoners. Quite
a number of officers  were present to witness  their departure. I
was  standing next to Mr. Jones, the interpreter, when they were
brought out  of the guard-house,  all  hand-cuffed, and all in the
usual blanket attire of the Indians.  When old Satank appeared
he set up the most weird and doleful  sing-song  wail I ever heard,
and his face  I thought was not so vicious looking as  usual, but
was  more solemn  and maybe with a trace of sadness in it.  I
asked Mr. Jones what it  meant, and  he replied in an  undertone,
"It means he ain't going far."
    Satanta and Big Tree were placed in one wagon with guards
sitting  behind them and Satank in another wagon with one of
the sergeants sitting beside him and guards behind and when the
columns were formed  troopers rode alongside the wagons and in
this  formation they left  the post.   When in the  valley south
of the post and probably a couple of miles away we heard the
report of firearms from  that direction.   Soon a  messenger ar-
rived with the compliments  of General Mackenzie and requested
that an ambulance be sent for a trooper who had been wounded.
He also gave the essential  particulars  of what  occurred.  It
seems that by some means unknown, Satank had a  knife hidden
about his person somewhere and although hand-cuffed had got
possession of it and  stabbed the sergeant sitting  next  to him
and  then grabbed the sergeant's gun  and shot  the teamster. 
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LITTLE PILLS
The sergeant's wound was only slight and he went forward with
the command, but the teamster was shot through  one side  of
the neck and fell from his  saddle and was brought  back to the
post hospital for treatment.  It proved to be only a deep flesh
wound and he was soon discharged  from the hospital, and re-
turned to his own command. When the guards realized the state
of affairs they made short work of it, and Satank  was laid by
the roadside and General Grierson sent a squad of  soldiers and
buried him there in his blankets.  It was his death song that
had so impressed me as they brought him from the guard-house.
    Satanta and  Big Tree were tried  and convicted in Texas and
sentenced to the penitentiary  for life.  It was  reported  in the
papers some  years afterwards that  Satanta  jumped out of a
window at the prison and killed himself and it was rumored that
Big Tree had hung himself, but so far as I know this was not
confirmed. 
CHAPTER VII.
    The first time I saw General Sherman was at Rome, Georgia,
during the Civil war.  I was in the field hospital there at  that
time and was in the dispensary one day when my attention was
called to some military procession on the street.  It turned out
to be only General Sherman  and his staff, the general riding
alone in front, his orderly a few  yards behind, and a few yards
farther back the  general staff  officers. The procession,  if  it
could be so called, impressed  me; first the isolated position  of
the commanding officer.  I thought of pictures I had  seen  of
Napoleon, always alone, and while I could not see the general's
face to advantage, for he looked neither to the right or left, I
thought him a stern, unbending, self-centered, iron-hearted mil-
itary despot, without sentiment or generous impulse.  I saw him
often thereafter, for I was with his command from  "Atlanta  to
the  Sea"  and up through  the Carolinas,  and he was always
alone on horse-back and  in the order  mentioned.  I never saw
him in company with anybody.  Fhad occasion to change my
impression regarding him somewhat at the battle of Bentonville.
We had marched all night to reach the battlefield in time to take
part in the engagement, and arrived on the ground early in the
afternoon.  As it happened, we stopped near the general's head-
quarters.   The battle was in  progress and as we could not  go
into the trenches  until night, 1  had a good opportunity of ob-
serving him during the afternoon.  He was  walking back and
forth along a space of ground a hundred feet or more in extent
and when there was a  lull in the firing he would slow  up to a
very  moderate walk, but  when it became heavy his pace would
increase and when it became a roar, as it did several times in the
afternoon, he would go at great strides back and forth, back and
forth, until it would again quiet down,  when he would  slow  up
in harmony with the lull in the battle.  From this I learned that
he was at least  impressionable.  Officers would arrive from dif-
ferent parts of the field and report, and instantly receive orders
and return at full speed  as they came. 
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LITTLE  PILLS
     From that time I never saw him  until at Fort Sill  at  a
 "hop" given by Colonel Carpenter in his new quarters  at the
 post.  Here I had to again change my impression of the general.
 He was one of the most cordial of men;  he seemed to know
 everybody, and I was  told seldom forgot a name or a face.  He
 had the remarkable gift  of  making  everyone  feel that he was
 an old acquaintance, and he entered into the amusements of the
 evening, mostly dancing,  with zest, and  after supper went  with
 the officers to the front porch to smoke and talk.  He ridiculed
 the idea of being a candidate for the presidency,  saying  he did
 not possess the temperament or disposition  that seemed neces-
 sary  to qualify one  for holding  an  office where there were so
 many adverse interests to consider, and where  they were  so fre-
 quently presented from questionable motives, but as far as  I re-
 member he admitted no preference  for  political parties.  How-
 ever, he did express a desire to pass his  old age in a quiet way,
 and free from political strife.  He left the crowd on the porch
 before all were through  smoking, and  joined  the  ladies with
 whom he seemed to enjoy himself as much  or more than with
 the men.   I though  him a rather awkward dancer but he  took
 part with apparent enthusiasm.
    After General Sherman and his party had  left the post the
 feeling of uneasiness increased in the camp,  and General Grier-
 son ordered the remaining officers into the new post which  was
 being built. It  fell to our lot to be quartered with Mr. Spencer
 and wife and except for losing a good servant we found it a pleas-
 ant change,  and were relieved of all apprehension regarding
 Indians.
    There was a band-stand in the center of the parade  ground
 and the Tenth Cavalry band was an excellent one, and in the
 summer evenings when retreat had been  sounded by the buglers
 and the signal gun fired "just as the sun went down," the band
 struck up and gave us very delightful music for an  hour or so.
 At such times the families of the officers would be  sitting on the
front  porches of their quarters or visiting with others and chat-
ting and listening to  the  music. 
LITTLE  PILLS                    69
    The bugle calls  at the army posts were always interesting
to me, and seemed to convey the idea intended almost as well
as words.  A number of them have words set to  the music,  if
it can be so called,  as  'Give  your  horses some corn and some
hay"'  for stable  call, and "Take your quinine" for sick call.
Reveille  had  a rousing, get-up quality  about it.  Sick call was
for those who had only slight ailments and  were treated at the
hospital  and  returned to  duty,  or if  found to be  something
serious enough, were  sent to one of  the wards in the hospital for
treatment.  Maybe a so-called bilious condition or a scratch  on
the hand, or  if a colored soldier a "misery," or he was "powerful
weak."  There were  not many  maligners, and they  were soon
detected.  In  the  cavalry drill there are many bugle calls for
the different evolutions.  The bugler rides near the commanding
officer and receives  the orders and transmits them by bugle to
the command.  Of all the bugle calls in the  service  "Taps" the
last call at night,  affected me most. It has all the quality of our
good-bye or goodnight, but to me it had much more. To me our
good-bye conveys  only  the idea of separation,  and I like the
Spanish word 'Adios" much better.  It not only conveys the idea
of separation  but also the sentiment "God be with you"  and so
"Taps" always impressed  me "Good-night,, and God be with
you,'  and as  the last prolonged  note died away the lights went
out and everything was still.  This  did not apply to the officers
when at  the post, and they and their families could enjoy them-
selves in their own  way, and could put out their lights early
or late.
    Toward the latter part of June, 1871 a command came up
from  the Department of Texas on its way to the military posts
in Kansas. The medical officer  accompanying it returned from
Fort Sill to his own department and post, and I was ordered  to
accompany the command to Kansas.   My  recollection is that
there were three  companies.   In this command were two young
officers,  lieutenants,  not long out  of  West Point, who  proved
very charming companions.  One was  a Mr.  Reese  from Ken-
tucky and the other was a Mr. Parker  from  Connecticut,  a son 
70
LITTLE  PILLS
of the maker of the famous Parker shotgun, generally thought
to be  the  best  to  be had  in  those days.
    The first thing of special interest on this march was when
we had gone into camp about sixty miles  north of Fort Sill,
which  was the second day out.   This was about four o'clock in
the afternoon, to give the  horses  and transportation mules  a
chance to graze.   I happened to look back in the direction of our
march and saw a small black object far in the distance that I
could not make  out.  I  borrowed  field  glasses of  one  of the
captains and discovered it to be a  horse and buggy. I became
quite curious about it, as I  did not think any  sane  man would
travel  through that Indian country alone for any consideration.
I would not have done so for all the money in the mint unless in
military dress.  He  came directly to our  camp and I  walked out
to meet him. He proved to  be  Father Poncelona of  Osage Mis-
sion, now St. Paul,  Kansas,  who had been down to Fort Sill to
baptise the  children and  give what comfort  he  could to the fol-
lowers of  his faith  at that post. He was very tired  for he had
started before daylight,  and had driven  all  day hoping to find
our camp somewhere, but he did not know where.  I took him to
my tent and insisted on him  lying down on my cot, which he dif"
under  protest, and 1? brought him  some brandy which he drank
with seeming relish, and by the time dinner was ready he was
ready to join us.  I  asked him how he came to take such chances
alone.  He said it was part of  his work and that there was  a
higher power (pointing his finger upwards) that would take care
of those  who  were  doing God's service.  He was past  middle
age and had spent most of his life since taking orders as a mis-
sionary among the  Indians.  He had a benign  faith-abiding ex-
pression of  face,  such  as I have never seen on any  other  man,
and  his voice was low and musical, and his manner most win-
ning.  I had some difficulty in geting him to take my cot for the
night,  he insisting that he was used to  sleeping on  the ground
and did not mind it.  I finally  told him  that I was boss of the
ranch, and he must do as I told him.  To this he smilingly as-
sented, and said that if it was orders he would have to  obey.
We always had breakfast and broke camp early in the morning 
LITTLE  PILLS
71
and aimed if a suitable campground could be found to  go into
camp by four  o'clock in the afternoon.!   The priest had  ex-
pressed a wish for an early start, and I had ordered his  horse
and buggy  to be ready for him, and he had breakfast with us
and went his way across the prairie and was soon out of sight
in the direction of  Camp Supply where he intended going.  I
have  often thought of  this and wondered at it.  Why did he
do it?  It was not for money for  he was poor and had  spent
years at the work.  What motive had he ?  What guardian angel
accompanied  him and kept him from harm?  If it  is true that
there is a divinity that shapes our ends,  why are they shaped
so differently, and why is it that some are immune where others
fear to tread?  Right here I think it  proper to say that  the
Catholic priests  have  always been the pioneers in religious mat-
ters on the frontier.
     During this trip Mr.  Reese and Mr.  Parker  and myself
rode  ahead one  afternoon to select  camp.  We went at good
speed  and  were soon out of sight  of the command when Mr.
Reese discovered he had lost his pocket book. He was quarter-
master and it contained about fifteen hundred dollars of govern-
ment money.  He was sure he had  taken  it from under his pil-
low in the  morning and he became quite  nervous about it.  He
referred to his loss several times before the command came up
with, 'Well, if I am mistaken and Andy (his old negro servant
whom he had brought from Kentucky) got it I am all right, and
I will quit talking about it." But he was ill at ease and went out
to meet the  command  as  it approached and we could  see the
old darky take  something  from his pocket and give it to  Mr.
Reese who came back smiling and  told us Andy said, "Oh yes,
Massa, I just got it right down here, I done found it under your
pillow" and this illustrates a phase of negro character  quite in
contrast with my political experience with Stanton.
     Mr. Reese, Mr. Parker and I generally rode together on this
march and were seldom out of sight or hearing of prairie dogs.
It was suggested one day that maybe they woud be good to eat.
Knowing that  they were not dogs at all but rather a kind of
marmot, and sometimes called so, and are strict vegetarians, we 
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LITTLE  PILLS
killed a young one and had it for dinner.  I was quite pleased
with the experiment before trying it, and was not particularly
enthusiastic about it afterwards.  It was not very bad but was
not very good. It tasted something like rabbit but I think mostly
like prairie dog.  At one time in my life I wanted to try almost
everything that was brought to bag in my hunting experiences
and I have  tested worse things than prairie dogs,  and I think
that if one were hungry enough he might relish it.
    We crossed the line into Kansas about the last of July and
soon saw  a new house  away to the front, a thing we had not
seen since leaving Fort Sill.  It proved to be  a kind of business
and residence combination and was  the first  house in what is
now known  as  Caldwell, Kansas, now the county  seat of one of
the famous wheat counties of Kansas, and a thriving city.  The
contrast between  the two sides of the land separating Kansas
and the Indian territory  was very  pronounced.  Small  houses
of settlers and little patches of broken ground and other evi-
dences of an inhabited  country on the one side, and nothing but
absolute vacancy  on the other.
    At  Wichita we  remained three or four days, having our
transportation repaired. As I  remember it, we had a long stretch
of sand before crossing the Arkansas and forded the river below
the town and then turned to  the west. It was a little village  of
one main street and I think they called it Douglas avenue.  The
houses were small but neat, and being the first town I had seen
for a year  or  two it  looked very  attractive.  We were there
over the Fourth of July and I  remember  a  delightfully clean,
attractive little place where they sold ice cream.  We had camped
just north  of the village and Mr. Reese, Mr. Parker and I fre-
quently visited the ice  cream parlor.  If there were any saloons
in the place I  do not  remember them for if there  had been
it would have probably shown on the enlisted men of the com-
mand.
    I do not remember which one suggested it, but we concluded
that it  would be  some fun to  visit the real  estate offices,  of
which I think there were two in the town, and hear what the
agents had  to  say. They treated us most cordially  and were 
LITTLE  PILLS
73
anxious to show us around and told us what a wonderful city it
was going to be.  All the southwest was going to be  a great
wheat country,  although we saw no wheat, and would be tribu-
tary to their town and they were going to  vote bonds  the fol-
lowing Monday for a railroad from Newton, then the terminus
of the Santa Fe.  If not the terminus  it was the great cattle
shipping point for the immense herds that came up the  hisholm
trail from Texas, the trail we had followed some  distance from
Fort Sill.  Everything would eventually  come to Wichita and it
would be a second Chicago.   One agent offered us a corner lot
centrally located for  one hundred dollars, and out farther to the
west,  or north,  whichever it might have  been, I don't remember,
on down to fifteen dollars a lot.  We approved of  the wonderful
prospects  for the town  and told them  we  would consider the
the matter of investing, and then went back  to our tents and
laughed about it.  We at least had an enjoyable hour or so.
    I have had occasion to think  about it since,  not with any
particular feeling of hilarity, but rather one of  regret that I
did not grasp the wonderful possibilities of the country.   Either
of the three of us could have invested a little money if  we had
known enough.   After  we had again started on the march I
stopped and talked with a man standing by the roadside and he
told me each alternate section of  the land was offered  by the
Santa Fe  railroad at two dollars  per acre.  It was a beautiful
valley and the land looked rich but the country generally looked
very primitive.
    One company left our command near here and I think went
to Fort Lamed or Fort Dodge, Kansas, the  other two going on
to the railroad at Fort  Harker, where  one  company remained,
and if I remember right, one company  went on to Fort Hayes.
I remained with Captain Kerin's company at Fort Harker for a
day or two during which time the paymaster came and  paid us
for June.  Captain Kerin was a typical Irishman and his com-
pany, almost without exception were Irish, and they were very
much devoted to each other.   The captain looked on his men very
much I thought,  as a father would look  on a bunch of wayward
children.  The payment was  made by the middle of the after- 
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LITTLE PILLS
noon and by night I think most of the men were drunk, the few
on guard duty being about the only sober ones, and the captain
told  me they  would stay that way until their money was all
gone.
    A funny thing occurred that evening.  The captain  and I
were  sitting in his tent talking  when there  was a scratch at
the tent cloth and when the  captain  said, "Come!" the  flap
was  thrown back  and one of the sergeants saluted and  said:
"Report for duty,  captain."   The captain said: "Sergeant, have
ye got any money?" "Yis, captain, a  little."  "Go and spend it,
go and spend  it."   The sergeant saluted and dropped the  tent
flap and walked away  and the captain turned to me and  said:
"No  use trying to do  anything with them until the money is
spent, and the whiskey is out of them."  Two or three  hours
afterwards the sergeant returned, scratched on the tent,  threw
the flap back  as before and saluted, and again said in a rather
husky voice: "Report for duty, captain."  "Sergeant, have you
got any money ?"  "Not a cint, captain." "Very well, report  to the
first  sergeant  for  duty.'*  The captain told me this was  a fair
illustration of his experience on every pay  day.   It is hardly
necessary  to say that the captain was not a West Point graduate,
but he was a royal good fellow  and a  good  soldier and  I ob-
served while in the service that officers promoted from the ranks
were  the  most devoted to the interests and comforts  of their
men.   The trip back  to my  post  was east by rail to Junction
City and thence on the M., K. and T. to its terminus in the ter-
ritory.  The railway was then under construction and the  termi-
nus was changed every month or so.  From the railroad I went
by stage to Fort Sill.  Nothing of interest occurred on  the way
until  we arrived at the last stage station east of the fort.  We
had breakfast  there and were told we had better get in the stage
as they were  about ready to start.  We found a bunch of men
hitching up a pair  of mules to a light stage-like vehicle, and were
told that they were just breaking them in and that  it was  better
to get in the stage first.  The driver was already up in his seat
and Mr. Stearns, a very large man and owner of the ranch where
we had breakfast,  was up beside the driver, and was going with 
LITTLE  PILLS
75
us some three or four miles to where they had made a cut-off
that took  us by a large spring of water, the last we could get
before reaching  Cache creek, some eighteen miles away. When
all was ready and the driver had the lines well in hand the word
"Go"' was given, and away we went at full speed,  much like a
horse race.  The driver's  efforts  being wholly devoted  to keep-
ing the team in  the road.  They ran full speed most of the way
to the springs but when  we arrived there  they were going in
a quiet little trot, seemingly satisfied with the fun they had had
on the way.  Mr. Stearns got down and held their* bits and the
driver got down and we got out of the stage—another man and
myself being the only passengers—and walked toward the springs.
I do not know how it happened, but  when one trace  was un-
fastened the mules broke away from Mr. Stearns and  struck out
over the  prairie.  My first thought was  that we would have to
walk back and wait for some other means of conveyance, but the
off mule having one trace unfastened had the advantage in the
race and out over  the prairie they went in  a great  circle, round
and round at full  speed, scattering luggage from the hind boot
of the stage until they ran themselves down, the driver and Mr.
Stearns cutting  across and trying to catch them.  At last they
succeeded for the  mules were pretty well winded by this  time
and ready to go slow. We found nothing broken and soon had
our luggage gathered up and the mules watered and were on our
way.  We got into Fort Sill a little later than the usual stage time,
nothing the worse for the wear.
    I do not remember whether it was before or after my trip
to Fort Harker that I was called to the Indian agency near Fort
Sill to see  Black Beaver, the chief of the Delawares, who was sick
and had come there for treatment.  I found him suffering from
dysentery and was seriously ill, and as he was an old man I had
serious doubts  as to his recovery.   He was neither able  nor
disposed to talk  although he knew enough English to make him-
self understood,  but after a few days he began to feel some  in-
terest  in life and gradually improved until  he was convalescent.
I felt  particularly interested in him because of a  story I had
read about him as interpreter in an early day for Colnel Marcey 
76
LITTLE PILLS
who was one  of General Sherman's staff officers when they
visited Fort Sill a short time before.  When the colonel was a
young officer in the service and had been sent out to make talks
to the Indians,  the story ran that the young officer had a pow-
wow day appointed with the  Kiowas and Comanches, and when
they had assembled and gone through the preliminaries of such
an occasion Captain Marcey told them of the great benefits the
great father at Washington wished to confer on them, and wound
up by saying: "We wish to put up poles across the country and
string a wire on them and then you can talk over that wire to
the Great Father in Washington and not have to wait until some
of your people  travel  such a great  way to see him.  When he
had finished he waited for Black Beaver to get up and tell it to
the Indians, but Black Beaver did not move but hung his head
and  sat there.   Why don't  you tell them,  asked the captain.
Black Beaver shook his head  and said:  'It's no use to tell them,
I don't believe it myself."  I was anxious to hear Black Beaver's
report  of that pow-wow, so when he was well enough I said to
him one day: "General Sherman and  staff  were here a  short
time ago  and Colonel Marcy was among them. I understand
you knew Colonel Marcy a good many years ago."  He brightened
up and said: "Yes, I heard Captain Marcy was here and I wish
I could have seen him."  By careful questioning I got the story
from him practically  as Colonel Marcy had recorded it  in his
book.  I said to him:  "Well, do you believe  it now?"  He  re-
plied: "Oh, yes, I know it now, I know it can  be  done, but I
don't know how."  How much more ignorant  was he than the
most of us?
     I find  I have not made  my sketch of the events at Fort
Sill in order of  their occurrence and must now refer back to the
winter of 1870 and '71  and we were still under canvas in the camp.
It was an unusually cold winter. The thermometer fell to four-
teen degrees below zero and the snow was a foot or more deep
on the ground.  I mention this incident both for  the purpose of
showing  some of the hardships that officers and  their wives
underwent  and  also to  show the self-sacrifice and  loyalty and
devotion of the  enlisted men in an emergency.  Doctor Brown 
LITTLE PILLS
77
and  his young wife were  on their way to Fort Sill where he
was  to become post  surgeon, a position I had held  since Doctor
Forward had been transferred to another post, and  they were at
the half-way camp between Fort Arbuckle and Fort Sill when the
storm  broke.   The  doctor's  wife was  confined  there and the
escort  accompanying them devoted themselves night and day
to making the camp as comfortable as possible,  getting water,
bringing wood, building  fires and  cooking, and this they kept
up until the weather moderated and Mrs. Brown was sufficiently
recovered  to make it safe for her  to travel.  As the result of
such heroism and devotion  some of them were badly frost bitten,
and all suffered more or less.  I removed all the toes except one
from one man's feet—only one of the large toes being left—and
others lost a finger or two or parts of fingers and were otherwise
frost bitten. In these cases nature sets  up the line between the
healthy and dead tissue  and  the  amputation is made  in the
healthy part and far enough back to get a flap sufficient to cover
the bone if possible.
    Mrs. Brown and her beautiful baby came with us when we
left the post,  intending to quit the service.   She to visit  with
friends  and relatives in  the  east.
    Another interesting occurrence took place when we  were
still  in  camp  at  Fort  Sill.  This was  the loss of  the quarter-
master's mules, which occurred  the latter part  of the winter.
The  Indians—supposed to  be—by some means got the gate of
the corral  open and with  the leader  on horseback rushed into
the corral  and set up the  usual yells and  shouts and soon had
the whole bunch of 140 mules under way before the alarm could
be given and the  cavalry mounted for pursuit.  They had such a
start that they could not be followed in the night, it being very
dark.  Different commands of cavalry were sent  out in pursuit
but returned in a few days empty-handed.  There was one young
officer by the name of Harmon, a second lieutenant  in the Tenth
cavalry, a tall, rather good looking young fellow who had said to
some officers that if they would give him a chance he would like
to show what he  could do. I think he finally went to General
Grierson and  expressed a  wish to  try.  The general  promptly 
78
LITTLE PILLS
gave him a detachment of cavalry, some  thirty or more  men,
and told  him to stay as long as he liked, but to bring back the
mules if possible.   Nothing was heard  of him for some  time
but finally word came from Fort Arbuckle that Mr. Harmon had
reported  there with  a bunch of horsethieves and that most of
the mules were then on their  way back to  Fort  Sill.  I heard
Mr. Harmon himself tell some of the  details of the scout.  He
had got  on the trail of the thieves—not Indians  at  all—some-
where south of Red river and found two of them in a house he
went to at night for information, believing he was close to their
camp.  He  took these two  prisoners  and waited until morning
to attack the camp.  The ranchmen where they had stopped and
where they had already captured two of the thieves, knew the
country well and acted as  guides.   Mr. Harmon and he had ex-
changed  firearms  on the way, he  taking  Mr. Harmon's pistol
and Mr.  Harmon  his shotgun.  They rode along  the bed  of  a
little stream  until  quite near their camp.  Most of the  thieves
were still in  bed but the negro cook  was busy about the fire.
Mr. Harmon's horse being much superior to anything  in  the
command, he was among the thieves practically alone. He shot
and wounded one of the  men with the second barrel of his shot-
gun, and  commanded them all to throw up their hands or he would
kill the last one of them.  He dropped the shotgun and reached
for his  pistols but of  course  they were  gone.  However,  the
thieves stood there with their hands up until the command came
and they were hand-cuffed  and were  soon  ready for the march
to Fort  Arbuckle, the nearest military post.  Not more  than  a
half dozen mules had been disposed of.
    The  sequel to this story was interesting to me for it caused
me a trip to Fort Arbuckle and back.  The guardhouse at  Fort
Arbuckle was  not  considered safe  and it  was thought best to
send the thieves to the new guardhouse at Fort  Sill until the
law could take its course.  They  were  sent  under a  guard of
colored troops commanded by a sergeant  with instructions to kill
them if  they  tried  to escape.  The  guard claimed that one man
made a break for the brush, but the prisoners  claimed that he
did nothing of the kind, anyway one of them was badly wounded 
LITTLE PILLS
79
and was taken back to Fort Arbuckle, and as Doctor Brewer, the
post surgeon was sick at that time a request for a medical offi-
cer come to Fort Arbuckle and cut a man's leg off was received
at Fort Sill and I was ordered on that duty.  Before I arrived at
Fort Arbuckle, Doctor  Brewer considered it too urgent  a case
to be delayed any longer, and although hardly able to handle the
knife, he had amputated the leg before I got there.  I remained
a few days until the  doctor was sufficiently recovered to attend
to the medical duties  of the post, and then returned to Fort Sill.
    I) now come to the last record I shall make of service  at this
post and have hesitated about mentioning it at all, and do so
now in as  few words as possible, not  only because "there  are
sorrows too sacred to be babbled  to  the world" but also because
they pull so hard  on the heart  strings.  Our  little  boy was
scalded to  death at  this camp.   The negro servant had set a
large kettle of boiling water off the stove, and some way in his
play he fell into  it.  We laid him away in the cemetery  on  the
hillside and had a stone covering placed over his grave, to mark
the place where his  little scalded body lay. 
CHAPTER VIII.
     This experience with the little prospect of promotion in the
 service decided us on our desire to return to private life, and I
 wrote  to the medical director of the department expressing my
 wishes in the matter, and my  reasons for quitting the service,
 and received orders to report  at the headquarters of the de-
 partment, Leavenworth,  Kansas.
     It may be well here to relate an experience  of  army life
 that occurred at Fort Sill after we had left the post.   The feel-
 ing of apprehension regarding the Indians had subsided to such
 an  extent  that the  officers' wives would  take  outings  in the
 ambulance, and it became in time considered  safe to go to the
 Washita agency and make purchases  and return the same day.
 Two of the officers' wives had  made the trip  and  were nearing
 the head of Cache creek  on their return,  when they saw the In-
 dians coming. The negro driver urged the mules with such good
 effect that they reached  the timber and  the driver escaped but
 the women were carried away to the mountains,  and for two
 weeks  were subjected to all the brutal horrors  to be  expected
 of savages and then were ransomed.  We were well acquainted
 with one of  these women but  the other had  only been  at the
 post a short time before we  left.
    I think few of the people of our country today realize how
 recently such horrors have been committed. For most of them
 it is a matter of the long forgotten past.
    We left Fort Sill about the middle of August, 1871 and had
 for company Mrs. Harmon, wife of  Lieutenant Harmon,  who
 captured the horsethieves  and  Mrs.  Brown, wife of  the  post
 surgeon, and  their little baby and nurse girl. We had an escort
 of a half dozen men under command of a  sergeant as  far as
 Fort Gibson,  Indian  Territory,  near the  junction of the Grand
 and Arkansas rivers, and from  there to the end of the railroad
 two or three  men to help about camp. The M., K. and T. rail-
road was then only finished to Pryor's creek and we had to take
a freight train  from there to Chetopa, Kansas, the end  of the 
LITTLE PILLS
81
passenger run.  We camped  at Steam's ranch the  first night
out of Fort Sill. As we were starting the following morning we
were  informed that a dead man had just been found near the
road we were to take, and only two or three miles away.  We got
some tools at the ranch and  stopped long enough to bury him.
He had  soldier's clothes on and had probably been only recently
discharged from the service.   A little money was found in his
pocket which I told the sergeant to take and  on his return to
Fort Sill try  and have the man identified, if possible, and send
the money to his friends.  He had  not been dead long as the
wolves had not disturbed the  body.
     Our night camp  on the  Washita was something we shall
always remember.  Before it got dark the mosquitoes had made
our  acquaintance in such numbers  that we were doubtful of
oui* night's rest, but we had the tent put  up and supper over
without suffering serious loss of blood.  They kept  coming in
greater  numbers until  we realized that  the  first were only  in-
stallments  of the  advance guard, and  by bedtime  they were
almost unbearable.  We smudged the tent to drive them  out but
only succeeded in driving out the little nurse girl who  was caring
for the baby.   I tried my usual place in the ambulance for a nap
but could not sleep and  heard the women talking in the tent
until toward midnight when I called my wife and told her that
if  she would come out to the ambulance I would try and keep the
mosquitoes off her until she could get a little rest.  We tried that
for an hour  but had to acknowledge our  defeat and  we still
heard the other women talking in the tent.  \ was now ready to
surrender,  so called the sergeant and  tqld him to have  the
ambulance driver hitch up  and we would get out of there and
he and the escort could come  on when they liked, as we were
than away from danger from  the Indians.  We drove for some
time after daylight and  found a  beautiful  camp ground with
fine running  water and went into  camp. The escort was not
far behind us—they had also  met with  defeat.  We  spent that
day and the following night in that camp and had a good rest.
The escort had brought  a  cub bear along  and he was  a very
amusing rascal although a cause of some  anxiety to the  women. 
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LITTLE PILLS
This day after we had sat down to dinner some trash fell on the
table and looking up we discovered him out on a limb above us.
The women thought best to have the table removed.  His home
while on the road was in the feed box at the rear of the wagon
where  he was chained,  and the first thing  when released  was
to hunt the water and take a good bath and then he was ready
to investigate everything around camp.  He  would roam around
at his  own sweet will until away in the night when he  would
return  to his box where we always found him  in the morning.
We had to keep the commissary supplies well protected, for he
was a  born thief.
    We had a good supply of small game on the  way particularly
turkeys and prairie chickens. We found  the young turkeys at
this season of the year  to be unusually fine.
    When we arrived at Oswego my wife went to visit friends
in the  country  and I went on to the department headquarters
at Leavenworth to report.  When I got there the medical direc-
tor was anxious that I  should  remain in the  service and said
that he would give  me a good post and suggested  Camp  Lime-
stone in Southeast Kansas in what was then known as the Chero-
kee neutral lands,  about thirty miles south  of Fort Scott.  It
would  be close to the railroad and other conveniences and com-
forts of  civilization, and he was sure I  would like  it, and he
hoped  there would be an examining board before long for pro-
motions and I had better consider the matter.   I asked for two
weeks  leave of absence  to consider his proposition which  was
cheerfully granted, and I went back to Iowa and looked up the
prospects and in ten days was back to continue in the service.
    My wife and I together went to our new  station at  Camp
Limestone and arrived there September 9th, 1871.  At that time
the railroad was finished to Baxter Springs but there had been
trouble with the settlers when  crossing the Cherokee neutral
lands,  an area  embracing  Cherokee  and  Crawford  counties
and the  southern tier of townships in Bourbon  county.   The
land had been sold for the Indians by the government to James
F. Joy, representing what was then known as the Kansas  City,
Fort Scott and Gulf railroad. The settlers thought  they should 
LITTLE PILLS
83
have the right to homestead the land, and resisted the construc-
tion of the railroad, caught  and whipped the  engineers and
threatened their lives and burned their instruments, the result
being that troops were sent to protect the purchasers and their
employees  in the construction of the road.
    There  were three  camps  established  along the line of the
railroad on these lands, one at Drywood, one at Limstone creek,
and one near Columbus, and occupied by  one  company at each
post.  Temporary buildings were constructed and the troops made
as comfortable  as  possible where they were not expected to re-
main  permanently.  Fort Scott  was the headquarters, General
Neal being in command, but there was a company  commander at
each camp. We arrived  late in the afternoon and went to a
house close by and remained there until the mail messenger from
the camp should return and  report our arrival.  In the course
of an  hour an  ambulance came, and we made our way across
country to camp and I reported to Captain Fenton of the  Sixth
cavalry in  command of the camp, and we  remained at his  quar-
ters over night and had our  own quarters ready  for occupancy
the following day.   The country was fairly well  settled imme-
diately around the  camp and along the streams, and there was
a schoolhouse less  than  a mile away.
    Part of the settlers had been there for some years and were
getting things about them to  look quite home-like.  Fruit  trees
grwing, peach trees bearing, and hedge-fences set  out, and  while
there was always a seeming scarcity of money and  farm products
brought low prices, the people  seemed contented and hopeful.
This was a very comfortable contrast with our experiences among
the Indians. Small game, particularly quail and prairie chickens
were plentiful, and wild fowl  abundant  in season. There  being
very little  to do in a professional  way I had plenty of time to
indulge in  my  favorite sport with dog and gun. We  had not
been at that camp  long  until Captain Fenton's  company was
replaced by another company of which Captain (Brevet  Major)
Upham was in  command  and Mr. Gordon, first lieutenant and
Mr. Kerr, just recently  from  West Point was second lieutenant,
and this company remained at  Fort Limestone during my service 
84
LITTLE  PILLS
there, and until the spring of 1873 when all the camps on the
neutral  lands were discontinued, the Supreme Court having de-
cided the title  of the land in the railroad company.
    When General Neal was  assigned  to  another post, Major
Upham  took his place at Fort  Scott, leaving Mr. Gordon in com-
mand at  our camp.  The officers of the  different camps had
transportation or yearly passes on the railroad from Fort Scott
to Baxter Springs and Fort Scott being then the principal town
in the  southeast part of the state  we were  frequently there
to make purchases or for any purpose our wishes might suggest.
We boarded the train at a place called  Engleton, since changed
to Beulah although there was  no station or side-track and only
one house close by, and trains only stopped on signals or to let
off passengers.  Take it altogether it was very much like living
on a farm in a  new country that was fairly well settled, but we
had many comforts  that farmers could not afford and did not
have to work as they did to earn a living.
    Most of the  farmers belonged to what was called the Set-
tlers' League and those of them who did not belong from choice
did so from fear.  I got acquainted with a number who felt no
way in  sympathy with some  of  their  doings  such  as burning
bridges  and other unlawful acts.  They  were all civil enough to
the officers and men of our camp and quite a number were dis-
posed to be friendly.  Some of them had contracted their land
from the railroad company considering their investments, which
in many  cases embraced good improvements, too valuable  to
take chances but  kept their contracts  a  secret. I frequently took
their payments to the land offices in  Fort Scott, they preferring
to send  it rather  than go themselves.
    Eighteen  hundred and  seventy-two was a bountiful  crop
year and we could get all the peaches  and many other things we
needed very cheap.  The quartermaster contracted his  corn that
year at  14 cents a bushel and the farmers who furnished it were
greatly  pleased at getting such a good price for shelled com.
Early in the spring of the year I received orders to take charge
of the surgical needs of the camp near Columbus and to make a
trip three times each week and as much oftener as I though  it 
LITTLE  PILLS
85
necessary.  This I could do and return to my own camp the same
day.  This was a pleasant duty for it gave me more to  do and I
was taken to and from the railroad in the ambulance each trip.
    Captain Bennett of the Fifth infantry was the commanding
officer at Columbus, a dignified, courteous, soldierly gentleman,
to whom I became very  much  attached. In a letter from Gen-
eral Miles he speaks of  Captain Bennett as  follows:  "Captain
Bennett who was  in command  of the camp at Columbus was  a
very  gallant officer. He had an  excellent  record  during  the
Civil war and went with the regiment to Montana.   He was en-
gaged in several Indian campaigns and in 1879 was killed in an
engagement with hostile  Bannock Indians at Clark's Fork of the
Yellowstone.  He was an ideal officer and one of the many heroes
who gave his  life in protecting  the homes of the defenseless  set-
tlers and maintaining the supremacy of the government." This
duty  continued  until late the following  fall  when another sur-
geon, Doctor Gray, was sent to take charge of that camp.
    When the open season for chicken shooting began we  had
frequent visitors who were fond of the sport.  Major Upham,
commanding at Fort Scott, would come often and bring friends
from Fort  Scott,  generally  Mr. Drake  and  Mr.  McDonald  and
sometimes  others, to spend a  day  with  dog and gun.   Captain
Butler from the camp on Drywood would come for a day. Colonel
Delancey Floyd-Jones of the  Third infantry came  down from
Fort  Hayes for two or  three  days, and brought with him an
excellent setter dog, that could not stand the heat as well as the
pointers, but was much more easily controlled.  I was a bit amused
at  his experience  while there.  When asked  at the dinner table
the first day  if he would be helped to both beef and chicken he
replied, "No beef  for me while I'm  here, I can get all the beef
I want at Fort Hayes, I came down here to eat prairie  chicken."
The last morning he was there I said, Well  Colonel, how is  it
this  morning, prairie chicken or  steak, or  both?" "Well,  he
said,  I believe I will try a little steak this morning."  He went
away delighted with his experience and promised  me another
visit  in the fall, but for some reason we did not see him again. 
86
LITTLE  PILLS
 He was a fine type of the old army officer, dignified, courteous
 and cordial.
     I  had done my first chicken shooting on  the  way in from
 Fort Sill, and was by no means a good shot.  Mr. Kerr, the young
 lieutenant, who was stationed here, was the  best wing-shot  I
 have ever seen on  the sporting field.  He had  his  gun made to
 measure and although he was six feet tall and finely propor-
 tioned he had ordered his gun to be only 6V& pounds in weight.
 Up  to that time I  had  thought the bigger the gun  the  more
 deadly the weapon.  I found I had a  good deal to learn about
 guns and  show to shoot  them. I must  tell you  about one of my
 first experiences in chicken-shooting with Mr. Kerr.  I happened
 to see  one on the ground and could not resist the temptation and
 I will  never  forget the disgusted expression on his face as he
 turned to  me and said, "For God's sake, are you hungry."  That
 one  precipitation cured me of shooting birds on the ground, un-
 less I was hungry.   Time and practice finally made me a fairly
 creditable shot but I was never steady in the field or at the trap.
 Mr.  Kerr  on  the other hand was always steady and reliable.  I
 remember one day just before Christmas when the snow was sev-
 eral inches deep he  asked me to count out one hundred loaded
 cartridges for him while he attended guard mount.  The ambu-
 lance was  at the door  and he  started promptly  when guard
 mount was over.  He brought back eighty-four quail  and nine
 loaded cartridges.  Poor old Dick,  his faithful  pointer had re-
 trieved them  all, and was an invalid for two or three days there-
 after.
     Mr. Kerr's quarters  and ours were  just across the corner
 of the  parade ground from each other, his facing north and ours
 east, and  he  was at our house  a great deal, especially in the
 evenings.  The conversation generally turned to guns and their
 different makes and merits; to dogs and their different breeds
 and  training; the loads  to  be used and the proper proportion
 of powder and  shot.  All these things were discussed until we
felt we were  authorities  on the  subject but for fear we might
be wrong  about the  powder and shot,  we experimented to find
if any of the powder left the gun-barrel unburnt, and with target 
LITTLE  PILLS
87
we settled at least to our own  satisfaction, the amount of shot
and powder  to be used.  My subsequent hunting experience has
not materially modified our conclusions.  In those days we used
black powder and loaded our own shells, the smokeless powder
and machine loaded shells being then unknown.
    One of  the  interesting things at this  camp that year was
Mr. Gordon's company  garden, some four or five acres in ex-
tent with everything imaginable planted in  it.  The  company
did the work of planting and cultivating but the rabbits did a
large part  of the  eating.  There  would be days when all the
company would  be  out shooting rabbits and it was much like
the picket firing I  had become familiar with in the volunteer
service.  This was kept up until the rabbits were comparatively
few around  camp, and the garden produced abundantly and was
a  great  help  in rounding out the men's  rations.  One  of the
enlisted men was an expert with the rifle  and caught many of
the rabbits  on the  run.
    While here I had an  opportunity of observing for the first
time the variableness in area of rainfall at different seasons of
the year. The latter part  of winter and early spring I observed
that if it was cloudy or raining at Fort Scott, it was the same
way at Columbus fifty  miles away and I presume  over a much
greater area. But as the season advanced, I would find it rain-
ing at Limestone, while on my  arrival at Columbus the weather
would  be clear and dry only twenty miles  away.  Sometimes a
heavy  shower would  fall between the  camps and both camps
would  be dry.  This  was a surprise  to me because I had not
thought  of it before, and I think  the feeling generally is if it
is  raining where you happen to  be, it is raining everywhere else.
    Before this camp was abandoned I  had some hospital prop-
erty on hand for which I was responsible,  and that had ceased
to be of service, and I had applied for its inspection and con-
demnation.   Soon afterwards  Colonel  Nelson A. Miles of the
Fifteenth infantry and inspector general of the department came
and condemned the property.  After dinner we played chess un-
til time for him to be taken to the northbound train, and I have
often wondered since that time if he remembers victory as well 
88
LITTLE  PILLS
as I do defeat.   Since then  he became  a distinguished officer
in our Indian warfare and finally attained the rank of lieutenant
general  and commander-in-chief of the army.
    Most  of the  officers who served at  the different camps on
the neutral  land while I  was at Limestone have since  died.  So
far as I know, General  Kerr—the Mr.  Kerr  of our camp life
there—and  myself are the only ones remaining.  Mr.  Kerr be-
came a  captain in 1885 and was wounded in the assault on San
Juan ridge July 1, 1898, promoted to major in October, 1898, was
military attache at Berlin in 1900 to 1902, promoted to colonel
in 1903  and to brigadier general in 1908 and retired from active
service  in 1909 as brigadier general in the United  States Army.
He saw much Indian fighting on the frontier,  and received nu-
merous  medals and honorable mention, in orders from different
departments and army headquarters.  It is a pleasure to mention
these promotions and) orders) commending him for meritorious con-
duct for as  a young man good things were expected of him by
his friends.   He is still living and it must be a  great comfort to
him in  his old age to reflect on the distinguished and valuable
services he  has rendered his country.
    The following winter the  Supreme  Court  rendered its de-
cision in  the case involving the title to the  Cherokee neutral
lands in favor of the railroads.  I think the  settlers  generally
felt that the decision would be against them for many of them
sold their improvements  and moved away, and most  of  those
remaining contracted their  land  from the railroad companies. 
CHAPTER IX.
    Orders came the latter part of March to abandon the camp
and I was ordered to  accompany the command to Fort Gibson,
Indian Territory, and  then to report to the commanding officer
at Fort Garland, Colorado,  for  assignment to  duty. From Fort
Gibson I returned to  Camp Limestone for my wife and  little
girl baby, who was born the previous November.  We were fur-
nished tickets by the  railroad as far as Kansas City, but when
we came to  use them  we found they had been packed with our
baggage  and of course had to  pay car-fare.  We went over the
same  railroad from Kansas  City  as the  one  I had first taken
in crossing the plains but in place of stopping in Kansas, is  it
did then, it  had been  finished to Denver.
    There was a narrow guage road from Denver  to Pueblo.
Its  passenger train was at the depot when ours  pulled in and
our train stopped beside it.  It  was quite a curiosity to me.   It
looked so very small,  I thought of it as  a toy affair and won-
dered if  we could make any headway on  such a thing.   I was
surprised and much gratified to soon know how much I had mis-
calculated its merits.  It  was a long train and went in and out
among the canons and around the mountain sides in an amusing
way and with surprising speed.  Maybe we would look out and
see an engine coming  down the track  across the canon  from us
and would discover it to  be our own engine puttering along as
though pleased with its job. We  stayed  over night at Pueblo
and in the morning we found there was an ambulance to take us
and  Major Hartz  over the  mountains to Fort  Garland.  The
major had introduced  himself the previous night on our arrival
from Denver.  On the  route to Garland we spent the night at the
different stage stations and were made fairly  comfortable.  As
we neared the summit  of Sangre De Cristo Pass (Blood of Christ)
the snow was very deep and soft.  We thought it too much of a
load for the  mules and so the major and I concluded to walk.   It
was well we did so, for the mules had all they could do to flounder
through  it.  I stood the walking very well but it was laborious 
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LITTLE  PILLS
work.  The major did not fare so well, for as we neared the top,
which is about eleven thousand, five hundred feet above sea level,
he was spitting blood and having difficulty in breathing.  The
west side of the range  was clear of snow and it was only two
or three miles from the  summit to  Steam's ranch, where  we
stayed over night, and  by morning although the major  had a
restless night the hemmorhage had stopped.  The following day
we drove to Fort Garland only twenty miles away.
    Fort Garland is situated  at  the  edge of the  foothills just
south of old Baldy, one of the highest peaks  of the Sangre De
Cristo range.  It was  a pretty location  overlooking the  Rio
Grande valley to the south and west  and we were  assigned to
comfortable quarters.
    About the first part of May a  troop  of cavalry under com-
mand of  Major Carraher was ordered to establish a camp  at the
junction  of the west fork  with the  main stream  of  the Rio
Grande, about one hundred miles west and a little north  of the
post,  and I  was assigned to duty as surgeon of the command.
This camp was established as a base of supplies for government
surveyors who were  to survey  the  San  Juan  Indian  reserva-
tion.  There had been trouble for some years between  the Ute
Indians and prospectors  who had gone into their reservation and
located some valuable mines, and warfare  between them had re-
sulted in the government buying the land and opening it to set-
tlers, and this survey was to fix the boundaries and divide the
land  into sections  and cross sections so legal  title  could  he
given.
    The  surveyors arrived a few days after we had established
camp.  A Mr. Prout was in charge of the party and they  stayed
at camp  several days to establish the exact latitude and longi-
tude of the camp as a base from which to make additional sur-
veys. I became very much interested in this work and  they ex-
plained a good deal of it to me but I was surprised at the time it
required  and  the figuring  necessary.  I  had the pleasure of
watching the chronometer and calling time on signal from the
observer.  The nights were clear and in  that rare  atmosphere
the stars shone with great brilliancy. 
LITTLE  PILLS
91
    An escort accompanied the surveyors in their work, a squad
of a half dozen men in command of  a noncommissioned officer,
generally  a sergeant, and each  week these were  relieved by
others and returned to camp.   There  was practically no need
for a surgeon with the  camp that summer, the only  two  cases
in the hospital being a man who was blinded  by a premature
shot in the mines and my pointer dog which I shot  on one of
my hunting trips.
    The country along the Rio Grande was unsettled, there being
but one abandoned log-house between Fort Garland and Loma,
now called Del Norte, a Mexican village  with a good  sprinking
of American houses, and located at the head of what was called
the San Luis valley.  The  log-house was  dignified by  the name
of Alamoosa and was our  camp-ground and half-way place be-
tween Fort Garland and our summer camp.  The trip was  gen-
erally made in two days although the distance was nearly one
hundred miles.  From Loma to the camp, a distance of  some
fifteen  miles,  the  mountains sloped gradually to the  river and
there were a few adobe houses occupied by Mexicans.  As there
was very little to do I  spent  a  good deal of time hunting and
fishing.  Rainbow trout are very plentiful in the river for  here
it was a clear rushing mountain  stream with deep pools and the
water was cold throughout  the summer from melting snows. We
had fish at all times and  cooked in every imaginable  way until
we were almost sickened at the thought of fish, although they
were  always  pretty to look at.  To this  day my wife does not
want to see or eat fish.  All kinds of game were abundant  but I
never had  much success with the larger varieties, I did not un-
derstand deer hunting and always managed it  the wrong way.
I did not know anything about  their runways, so still hunting
was not practical and in riding over the mountains they saw me
before I saw them and that settled the matter.   I tried repeat-
edly to  get a shot at an elk that I frequently saw on  his favor-
ite grazing ground, a small park a half mile or  more away  near
the top of one of the high  points in the mountains, but with all
my care, and calculating the direction of  the wind, and figuring
on the best way of approach, he would always scent the danger 
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LITTLE  PILLS
while I was making my way through the thicket of aspens that
surrounded the park and I could hear the keen whistle-like note
and hear him  bounding away before I caught sight of him.
    On these hunting trips I rode a government mule that Gen-
eral Alexander, the post commander at Fort Garland, had given
me for the summer's  use, and  who  spoke  of him with great
praise as an exceptionally good saddle animal.  He was said  to
be twenty-seven years old, and had formerly been used as a mes-
senger mule between Fort Garland and Taos when  the mail was
brought to  the post from the latter point. I suppose he had been
gray at one time but now he was white from age, but had been
well  cared  for and although in fine condition, had been retired
from  actual service.  I found him all that he was recommended
to be, and  with an additional merit that he was not afraid of a
gun.  I could fire from the saddle and he  would  not flinch, and
because of  this exceptional quality, I  had  a  great  deal  of sport
shooting jack-rabbits.  They would jump up and run away fifty
or a hundred yards and sit up straight, which is their habit, and
I would aim in line and a little below the mark and as the mule
would inhale it would raise the muzzle of the rifle and by pulling
the trigger at  the right moment I was sure to see the  rabbit
tumble over.  I never had much chance from  the saddle at larger
game. The color of the mule was against it, and I was not a
good  shot  with the  rifle at moving  objects.
    I became  much attached to this mule for his  exceptionally
easy gait and  his fine disposition, however, he played me a bad
trick one day for which I have since forgiven him because of my
own culpable ignorance. It was  getting late  and I was out  of
my usual hunting range when  I  saw  an antelope grazing in one
of the many beautiful parks to be found in the mountains. There
was  a small ravine down the center of this park  near which I
noticed a clump of willows  and figured that  if I  could approach
from  behind the willows I  could get  a  good shot.  My scheme
worked all right and I got up within range and fired.  To my
great surprise I saw the shot take  effect on the hillside beyond
and had passed over the antelope's shoulders.  This was a puzzle
to me for  I was  sure  I had taken  good aim, and equally  sure 
LITTLE  PILLS
93
that I did not have the "buck-ague."  The antelope ran away
and stopped and looked back at me when I estimated him to be
about two hundred and fifty  yards away.  I made a careful al-
lowance for the distance and  fired at the shoulder  and at the
report of the gun he dropped in his tracks apparently without
a struggle.  I thought a little strange of this, for I had aimed
just back of the shoulders and supposed he would at least make
a jump or two and struggle some after falling.  Imagine my sur-
prise when I found his  neck broken just back of his ears,  a
purely accidental shot.  I went back to my mule, which by the
way I had named "Paddy O'Rooney" but always addressed  him
by his given name, and I thought I would put the antelope on him
without dressing it as it was getting late and I wanted to find a
trail down to the valley.  I found  that Paddy had an altogether
different view of the matter, for he had no desire to get acquaint-
ed with the dead antelope.  There was no  timber near where I
could tie him to a tree, to force him to accept the load and so a
bright idea occurred to me. I have done a good many foolish
things in my life, but I  think nothing quite so idiotic as  this.
I decided  that I would  tie the end  of the lariat rope to the ante-
lope's hind legs, the other  end  being fastened around Paddy's
nneck and I  would then  get on  the mule and pull the  antelope
up. This  scheme worked pretty well at least  part way. I  was
in the saddle and my gun  acrss  in front  of  me and I backed
Paddy up toward the  antelope, wrapping the lariat  around the
horn of the saddle as  he backed.   Paddy would look back  and
snort a little, but was quite  gentle until  I attempted to  raise
the antelope  up to  me. When Paddy saw  it move  I believe he
thought the thing had come to life and was going to swallow
him, for the way he went down the mountain side would  have
shamed John Gilpin and his foam covered horse. I tried to hold
him but I might as well have tried to hold a cyclone. I  had
been raised on a farm and helped break the young horses to  ride
and work, and I thought I could hold anything, but I had never
been on a scared mule before, and I found I  was utterly  help-
less.  My first impulse was to throw away my gun and try to
get off and let the mule and the antelope have it out together but 
94                     LITTLE PILLS
the lariat was across my right thigh and I could not get away
from it.  I believe the thing following him added to his terror,
for we went over places I could not have forced him over in his
sane condition.  I went over the track of our runaway race a
few days later and found a ledge of nearly four feet in height
that we had gone over, and I really think it would have been the
same thing to Paddy if it had been forty feet in place of four.
The old saying "All's well  that  ends well"1 proved  true in this
case.   The lariat rope  slipped around  the saddle  horn caused
by the jerking of the antelope as it bounded along and choked
Paddy  down just as we got  to the edge of the timber.  I hur-
riedly dismounted and loosened the lariat so  that he could get
his breath and found that  he was pretty well tuckered out.  I
tied him to a tree and then went back to examine my antelope.
The hind and  fore-quarters were  held together by the backbone
and a strip of  skin along the belly but the ribs and entrails were
gone.   Fortunately we had stopped  near a trail which  I knew
would lead down to the valley, although I had never been over it
before.  When I tried to put what was left of the antelope on
Paddy's back he again rebelled.  I then tied his neck up  against
a small tree and wrapped the lariat around the tree and his neck
until he could  not buck, but in his struggles  he lost his footing
and hung himself. I cut the rope as  quickly as I could, and got
him on his feet again and gave  him a little more  freedom the
next time and while he protested most vigorously,  I finally got
my antelope securely fastened in the saddle and led the poor
worn-out mule down  the trail. It was  very  dark by this time
and we made  slow progress but  finally reached the valley  and
I estimated that we were not more than three or four miles from
camp.  We had only  gone a short distance when we met a de-
tachment of cavalry that had been ordered  out by Major Car-
raher in search of me. The major had been over to  my tent two
or three times and finding I was  not there became uneasy, think-
ing I might have met with some accident, or the Indians might
have found me.   We  arrived in  camp  about  nine or ten o'clock
with what was left of the antelope, a  very tired hunter and a
very tired  mule. 
LITTLE  PILLS
95
    The  following day I tested  my rifle at a mark and found
good cause for my wild shooting the previous day. I suppose the
front sight  had been slightly moved  by striking on  a tree or
something on  my trip before I found the antelope.  Paddy  and
I still remained good friends and  he took me many pleasant
rides through  the mountains.
    With the  latter part of August came the wing-shooting of
the dusky grouse  (Canace of the Ornothologist) a large slate-
colored bird, some larger  than our prairie chickens (Cupidonia
Cupido).  The young birds  could then  fly strong and afforded
great sport.  My observation is  that it is a very stupid bird.  I
have seen them sit on the limb of a tree until knocked off after
repeated throwing and have seen them sit  on  the  bare ground
apparently thinking they  were hid, until I have walked up to
within ten  or fifteen feet of  them,  before  they would  take
wing.  Until well grown I found them most frequently in the
open parks where there was a ravine with water and willows and
other undergrowth, and more or less  grass for  cover, but  later
in the season  they took to the large  timber.  So far  as my ex-
perience goes they  are the best table bird of all the grouse
family.  The flesh is white and delicious. Their range is as high
as timber line in the summer but they go  lower as the season
advances.  There were no quail  at this altitude.  I think  they
do not go so high and I saw no other game birds.
     There was a bird about camp called the "Nut-cracker" and
I believe in some places  known as "lark's Crow" (Nussifrage
Columbrana) that for a nuisance I believe could not be equalled.
In action, in size and something in appearance and rasping  voice
he much resembled our jays. They were in great numbers about
our  camp and were  impudent fellows  and seemed determined to
get into everything.   Mr. H. W.  Henshaw was with  us that sum-
mer  collecting natural history  specimens for  the  Smithsonian
Institute.  He was quite  anxious to  find the  nest  and eggs of
this  bird.  I  supposed from  their abundance  this would  be a
matter requiring little effort, but  I found  I was mistaken.   I
made it my special part that summer to locate a nest of these
birds and was constantly on the lookout.  I often went out with 
96
LITTLE  PILLS
Mr. Henshaw in the morning when he would start on his day's
round but generally lost out after the first hour.  He  was an
athlete in size and finely proportioned and hardened to the work
by constant practice, and could walk the legs off me in an hour's
travel.  I would then strike out for myself but was always look-
ing for the Nut-cracker and trying to locate his nest.  One day I
saw him fly away from a hole some fifteen feet up in an  old tree
stump, the limbs having fallen away. This looked encouraging so
I climbed up and found a nest but no eggs.  I reported  my find
to Mr. Henshaw  that evening and he was pleased with the pros-
pects and said we would go together in about a week, and by that
time we might find eggs in the nest.  I had marked the place
well and we had no difficulty in finding it.  Mr. Henshaw did the
climbing this time and thrust his hand in the hole but found no
eggs.   "Wait a  minute though," he  said and thrust his hand
down  in the hole again, but brought  it out in a hurry  and the
blood  was dripping from it.  He suggested I make a forked stick
such as every boy knows who has ever twisted a rabbit out  of
a stone wall or hollow log, and he twisted  the thing out which
proved to be a mountain rat, something entirely new to me.  It
was a rat in every way I had known them but had a bushy tail
like a squirrel.   We took it to camp with us and the skin went
away  with his other specimens to the institute.   This is  com-
monly called the bushy-tailed rat  but is  designated Neotoma
Cinera Orelestes by the zoologist.
    Mr. Henshaw is now  chief  of  the  biological survey in the
United States Department of Agriculture, to whom I am indebted
for many agreeable experiences  and for most of my knowledge
concerning most of the birds and animals herein mentioned. His
contributions to the National Geographical Magazine  are par-
ticularly interesting and instructive.  The rat mentioned is also
one of the varieties of what is known as pack-rats.  They con-
struct a nest of  sticks and other  rubbish found in the neighbor-
hood,  and if near a house may  carry  off  spoons or knives  or
anything that attracts their attention.  There is a smooth tailed
rat belonging to  this genius that is very abundant in New Mexico 
LITTLE  PILLS
97
and is apt to leave something in place of the article  he carries
away, and on that account is often called the swap-rat.
    General Alexander and some other  officers from the post
at Fort Garland came to our camp the latter part of July. Com-
plaint had been made by cattlemen, really some Englishmen by
the name of Hamilton, that some of their cattle had been killed
and they blamed the  escort that accompanies the  engineers for
their  death.  Mr. Delaney,  who  came with the general,  and  I
were detailed to go to Antelope park, where the ranch was lo-
cated, and investigate the matter. The general and some other
officers accompanied us as far as Wagon-wheel Gap and with  a
small escort we continued on to the park, the general and other
officers returning to  camp.  We found  the  Hamilton brothers
very cordial and hospitable.  We talked the business over quite
thoroughly and remained until near midnight before returning
to our camp a  short distance away.  The following morning we
found a half-inch or  more of  ice in  a  cup that  had been left
with some water in it the night before,  rather cool  weather  I
thought for the 30th  of July.   It was very chilly riding for the
first two or three hours in the morning, but the sunshine finally
got the  better of the cold, and  we were comfortable  for the
balance of the  day.   We  camped at Wagon-wheel Gap  the fol-
lowing night and found it an interesting place, althoug"h there
was but one log building and that unoccupied, in the  place.
    The river here makes a great circular bend around an almost
perpendicular wall of rock that I  judged  to be about a half-mile
high.  Across the river from this was a  beautiful valley sloping
gradually up into the mountains and in it were many hot springs
varying in temperature from barely tepid to boiling hot.
    The following day brought us back to  our summer camp
again.   Our camp here was beautifully located among the pines
and between the camp and  bluff there was a pretty  little lake
which had been made by  turning a little mountain stream into
the low ground between the camp and the bluff.   The officers'
tents  were in  line facing this lake,  and at the  back ground
sloped gradually to the river about a half-mile away.  A very in-
teresting  'nature feature" of  this camp, was the uniformity 
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LITTLE  PILLS
with which we got a shower of rain every morning during July
and August, and we got into the habit of expecting it at eleven
o'clock and were seldom disappointed.  One day, August 17th, the
water  from the cloud in passing over became congealed and
formed snow-flakes that for size were really astonishing.   I was
on my way to Loma on my faithful  mule Paddy O'Rooney, and
when it came it shut out practically everything from sight,  a few
yards away, and lasted probably twenty or thirty minutes.  About
four inches  of snow fell in that time, then  the sun came out
bright  and warm, and it seemed to go away almost as fast as it
came.  On my way back to camp the depressions along the way
were flooded and by night only the spots protected by ledges  of
rock or dense foliage were left.  With all these pleasant sur-
roundings, and nothing  to  do  but fish and hunt, life became a
little monotonous. I sometimes wonder if people will get tired  of
golden streets and heavenly music.
   The survey being  ended we broke camp  September 9th and
started back to Fort Garland. Mr. Prout and one other engineer,
whose  name I  cannot now recall, accepted commissions in the
Egyptian army and a  letter received  some months later assured
me it was not a very comfortable service.
    While in this camp my wife and I thought one day it would
be fine to take an outing together, so  the ambulance was ordered
and she and our little baby girl and nurse girl and myself and the
driver  made up the party.  We crossed the west fork of the Rio
Grande and went up the  valley for some distance. The west fork
is  smaller than the  main  stream, with many  pools and  little
rapids  and hugs close to the north side of the  valley as far  as
we went.  The mountains rose abruptly from the waters and  at
a great height divided into peaks and spires, pinnacles and dames,
in  abandoned confusion,  that impressed me not only as  most re-
markable but  also the most beautiful combination of mountain
scenery I had  ever witnessed.  The pools were especially attrac-
tive for I had taken my tackle with me, so I left  the  party  in
charge of the driver and started out for some good sport.  I did
not meet with the ready response I  expected  from  the fish, and
kept going on up stream trying one pool  after another until I 
LITTLE  PILLS
99
was quite out of sight of the ambulance but still kept going, each
pool  looking more inviting than the one just  passed.  I finally
came to an unusually large pool, deep and wide, and  that ran
close to the perpendicular bluff on the opposite side.  I had made a
number of casts when a voice from somewhere called out "What
luck?"  It  might have been from the clouds  and I would not
have been more surprised, and at first \ could not locate it, but
looked up and down stream and back over the valley but saw  no
one.   Finally just across from  me on  a big block of rock that
had  become detached from the mountainside and in plain view
sat a man.  His clothing was so near the color of the  rock and
he sat so  stalk still  that I would never have  discovered him if
he had not made the inquiry.  Answering I  said,  "Not very
good," but  some way I was so startled by that  inquiry seemingly
coming from the unknown and then finding a real man  where of
all places I least expected him, that I think I was a little nervous
about  it, and soon lost interest in  fishing and returned to the
ambulance.  He had  evidently been watching me as I was going
up stream but made no other effort for closer acquaintance and
I left him with that  one response, "Not very good." 
CHAPTER X.
    A few days after returning to Fort Garland I was ordered
to report to Major McClave who commanded a troop  of cavalry
and was camped near  the top of Sange De Cristo pass.  The
nights were cold and the camp was in every way an unpleasant
one.   We only remained there a few days when we broke camp
and went down the Veta pass.  The Sangre De Cristo and Veta
passes joined just beyond the top of the range on the west side.
We camped near La Veta, a Mexican village, the first night.  In
coming down La Veta pass we had a good view of the  Spanish
peaks, a name I remembered in connection with my very limited
study of geography when a lad, and which for some reason I ex-
pected to be grand and commanding.  After spending a summer
in the mountains and seeing them in all their rugged grandeur,
the peaks looked small  and their hay-stack tops were disap-
pointing.  We went by  easy marches  until we reached a point
on the Purgatory river some forty miles above its mouth where
we remained  in camp about a month.  Our camp here was sev-
eral thousand feet lower than the one  near Sangre de Cristo
pass and was in a fine  grove of large cotton-wood trees and by
comparison was  a very comfortable place.  The nights were  a
little cool but the days were delightfully pleasant.  The Purga-
tory  valley was practically unsettled in those days except near
Trindad, where there were a number of small ranches  but I only
remember one ranch between our camp and the mouth  of the
river.  While in this  camp a  wind-storm came up one afternoon
and grew in volume as  the evening advanced but we felt secure
on account of the bluff  just across the river to the windward of
us.  However, I could hear it among the tree tops before drop-
ping  to sleep, and I wondered if it could do any arm. When I
awoke  the next morning the  ridge pole of my tent was broken,
and the tent crushed  in by some great thing extending obliquely
upward, and only a few inches above my chest. I  hurried out-
side as quickly  as I could and  found an immense dead cotton- 
LITTLE PILLS
101
wood tree lying across my tent with the top caught in the forks
of another tree  few yards away.
    I found both Major McClave and Mr. Williams, his lieutenant,
very interesting  companions.  The  major  had served in the
ranks before the war,  and had been promoted  for bravery and
efficiency in  the service.  He was a thorough soldier, courteous
and considerate to everybody, and like all the officers I met from
the ranks, was very devoted to his men.   Mr.  Williams was a
West Point graduate and an accomplished gentleman, and I shall
always remember my experience with this command with pleas-
ure.  Mr. Williams  and I had found a fine bathing pool in the
river and had frequent occasions to enjoy its chilly but invigorat-
ing qualities.  One day when in the midst of our bath the bugle
call  for  "boots  and saddles"  sounded.  We hurried  from the
water,  dressed and got  to camp in time to find everything ready
to move.  A messenger had arrived in camp bringing word of an
Indian  raid and the killing of cattle at some point down the river
toward Las Anamis. We kept going until some time after mid-
night when we were within a few miles of Fort Lyon and from
there the major  and I took the ambulance and went  on  into
Fort Lyon to report and get such information as we could, and
instructions  for  any further action that was considered neces-
sary. We got back to our camp just at good daylight and found
Mr. Williams and the men almost ready for the march.  After
a hurried breakfast we were soon on the way up the Arkansas
Valley.  We followed this valley to where Wild Horse creek enters
the river, then turned  up that  creek and marched  until near
sundown when some cattlemen and rangers met us and reported
that  the Indians had turned east and would probably cross the
Arkansas  below Fort Lyon.  Right here  it is just as well to say
that  cavalry  stand a poor show to overtake a  band  of Indians
if  they have  a few miles the start.  The  Indian pony does not
eat corn; the cavalry horses must have it  or at least some kind
of grain.  Stop and  unsaddle your Indian pony, lariat him out
and  give him an hour  to rest and graze, and  he is  ready for
another jaunt of a half  day or more.  He is a tough, hardy beast
and  can  be  forced to keep  going when the cavalry  horse will 
102
LITTLE  PILLS
simply quit.  We returned  slowly to Fort Lyon and reported to
the commanding officer for instructions,  and were ordered back
to Fort Union where Major McClave's troop of cavalry belonged.
longed.
    There was nothing of special interest on this trip  although
the night we camped at Dick Wooton's there was a heavy snow
and the major spent a good part of the night looking after the
comfort of his men and horses.  After crossing this spur of the
mountains the weather was pleasant and the country free from
snow  and we reached  Fort Union without further incident.  I
returned by  stage to Fort Garland and arrived at that post the
forepart  of  December  and  was there awaiting orders until  the
18th.   The weather was cold, Fort Garland being at an altitude
of about seven thousand feet  above sea  level, and it was com-
fortable to be with  my wife and little girl, and in good quarters
again.
    General Kautz  had taken  General Alexander's  place as post
commander,  but Dr. Happersett, the post surgeon, and the other
officers were the same as when we arrived the preceding  April.
The social features of the post were charming  and I  hoped it
would be my good  fortune to remain there  during the winter,
but a few days after my arrival orders  came for  me to report
to the commanding officer at Fort Stanton, New Mexico,  for
duty.  We started on December 18th and the thermometer reg-
istered eighteen degrees below zero that morning. We were well
equipped for the trip, having four mules to the ambulance  and a
six-mule  team and  wagon for our baggage.   The question may
occur to  some of my readers how could all your household  goods
be carried in one wagon? We  did not have much to carry, par-
ticularly in the way of furniture.  The quarters  at the different
military  posts were furnished by the quartermaster with stoves,
tables, bedsteads and all kinds of furniture  that would be cum-
bersome  to  move.  We carried folding chairs,, carpets,  bedding
and numerous "household necessities and comforts with us,  but
one wagon was sufficient for this purpose in addition to carrying
grain and hay for the mules from one government supply station
to another.   On most of the routes traveled  there were govern- 
LITTLE  PILLS
103
ment stations where grain and forage were kept for the animals
used  in government transportation.   We started early,  having
forty miles to make that day to reach Conejos  (Jackrabbit) the
first  government station on the route.  We heated bricks for
our feet and by drawing the curtains around the ambulance, it
was  made  quite comfortable.  We crossed  the  Rio  Grande on
the ice and reached Conejos in the evening and had a very com-
fortable place for the night. We  remained one day at Canejos
for supplies of grain and hay for the mules. For the next three
days  and two nights we were in deep snow all the way, and of
course made slow progress, and the escort melted snow for water
for ourselves and the animals  during this time.  We  hoped to
reach Sa ?n Juan on the Rio Grande by the end of the third day,
but were apprehensive, for we  knew we had to cross  the Rio
Chama, a stream that had acquired an unenviable reputation be-
cause of its quicksand.  We reached this stream just at dusk of
the third day and for the first time in three days saw the friendly
lamplights  at a Mexican village a short distance above  the  ford.
This was my first acquaintance with quicksand, and I would know
better now.  We  should have  unfastened the  mules from the
wagon, and broken the ice,  which was not strong enough to hold
them up, and thus made the way clear so we could cross without
stopping.  To stop is fatal.  In place  of doing this, we expected
the mules to break the ice as they went.  About the middle of
the stream  was a sand-bar only slightly covered with ice and
water and the water had been shallow over to this bar, but when
the mules came into the deep water beyond, the leaders refused
to break the ice, the team stopped, and the wagon gradually set-
tled down until the running gear and bed rested on the sand-bar.
I ordered the team unhitched and the  ice broken so we could get
around with the ambulance, and we  made the crossing without
difficulty.  It was then quite dark and I decided to ask for a
volunteer to remain with the wagon and the balance of us would
go on to San Juan.
    I called the men together,  and  asked  if any  one of them
would volunteer to  stay with the wagon over night.  An Irish-
man stepped out and said,  'Yis Doctor, I will stay with it."  It 
104                   LITTLE PILLS
seems to me that in a case like this, or for that matter in any
emergency, one can always depend on the Irishman.  I knew his
habits at the post, for he was in the guardhouse occasionally for
drunkenness, so I  said to him,  "Look here, this is not  an easy
job.  If those  Mexicans up there knew this wagon was in here
they might give you trouble,  and if they found you drunk they
would probably kill you and loot the wagon. "Now I am going to
leave a  bottle  of whiskey with  you, for it is a very cold night
and you will need some before morning, so be careful  and do  not
take too much of it.  Get out and walk when you get too cold to
sleep but don't get drunk for your life may be in danger if you
are not able to take care of yourself."  "Yis Sir,, Doctor, I under-
stand that sir, and I will keep sober, sir,  and  I will take care
of the stuff all right, sir." We left him there and the balance
of the escort with the six mule team, and my wife and baby and
I in the ambulance, started on to San Juan some six miles away.
We got off the road as we neared the  station, and  our ambu-
lance got  into an irrigation ditch and turned over on one side,
but did no harm and we soon had it right again, and  after some
trouble in finding a road, finally reaching San Juan  about mid-
night.  We had wandered around a good deal in trying  to find
the road again.
    The following day the escort returned to the Rio  Grande,
and  found the Irishman all right and only  about half  of  the
whiskey gone.  He had fully merited  all my confidence.  They
unloaded the wagon and slid the contents across the river on  the
ice, and by digging and  prying with  the  tools they had taken
from the station, and hitching all ten  mules to  the wagon, they
drew it  out the quick-sand and across the  river and arrived at
the station with everything in good shape about dark that eve-
ning. The morning before Christmas my wife and I concluded
to ride to  Santa Fe about twenty miles away for breakfast.   It
was  a stinging cold morning, and we had to  go  over a little
mountain range on the way, but the roads were hard and smooth
as a pavement, and we made the trip at a clipping gait, but were
thoroughly chilled by the time we reached  Santa Fe.  There was
no fire in our room and  I went to the landlord, Alex McDowell 
LITTLE PILLS
105
and asked him to send us something to warm us up.  In a few
minutes a man came in with a tray and glasses and something he
called Tom-and-Jerry and hoped we would like it.  I think I never
tasted anything so delicious, and I believe my wife appreciated
it  as  much as I did,  and the effect was marvelous.  We were
soon warm and  comfortable, and by comparison  with the ex-
perience of the past few days, it seemed a paradise indeed. This
was my first acquaintance with Tom-and-Jerry,  and while I be-
came better acquainted with these gentlemen afterwards, we were
never very cordial  friends but I never met  them under such
favorable conditions as on the morning after that cold ride over
the mountains.  We did some shopping on the 24th and remained
over Christmas at the hotel. The morning after Christmas we
again started on our way to Fort Stanton. 
CHAPTER XL
    The trip from Santa Fe to Fort Stanton was not an attrac-
tive one. There was not much snow and  no mountains to cross
but the route was uninhabited and dreary, consisting of alternate
stretches of timber and alkali lands, until we neared Fort Stan-
ton when the timber improved in quality, and the country gen-
erally was  more inviting.   We reached Fort Stanton on the sec-
ond of January and were at once assigned  to comfortable quar-
ters which we occupied the  following day but stayed with  a
brother officer's family the first  night. I found Fort Stanton a
very desirable post at which  to serve.  Major Clendenning was
in  command and Doctor  Fitch was post surgeon  until my ar-
rival. The fort and military reservation were beautifully located
on what was then the Mescalero Apache reservation in the White
mountains,  El Capitan being  the nearest peak, and on a little
stream called Rio Bonito, (pretty little river) and it was an ex-
ceptionally  pretty stream.  Anywhere east  it would have been
called  a creek or branch.   It was a  mountain  stream  of clear
cold water and the post was supplied with water through a ditch
taken  out  from  the river at some distance above the post, and
carried to the highest point  on the parade  ground, and from there
distributed each way around the parade ground and then taken
to  the  corral  and the stables lower down the valley.  In front
of  each officer's quarters a barrel was sunk in the ditch to a
depth  where the water would  almost reach  the top of the staves
 and the up and down stream  sides were cut away  as low as the
bottom of the ditch, thus  allowing the water  to  pass through
freely.   Small trout  were often  dipped up in the  water taken
from these barrels.   Fort  Stanton is located at an altitude of a
little over  six thousand feet and is not only a beautiful location
but is a very healthy post.  I^t was abandoned long ago as a mil-
itary post but is still owned  by  the  government and used as a
sanitarium for tuberculosis.  I have  visited it since it was con-
verted  in to a sanitarium,  and for cleanliness and general sani- 
LITTLE  PILLS
107
tary conditions it did not compare with the post when used for
military  purposes.
    In those days game  was plentiful in the mountains and the
duck  shooting along the pretty little  river was exceptionally
good.
    What  was afterwards known as the  Lincoln County War
was just then in its incipiency.  Considerable shooting was done
between  the cattle and sheep men,  and the death of a sheep-
herder—always a Mexican—or a cattleman, was of frequent oc-
currence.   Word  came to the post one evening, that a  deputy
sheriff had been shot while attempting  to  settle some difficulty
between  the cattle and the sheep men, and a  surgeon  was re-
quested to go to  Lincoln, the county seat  some ten miles down
the valley  to see him.  Major Clendenning sent for me and ex-
plained the matter,  but  said if  he were in my place he would
not go, as  those Mexicans would just as leave take a  shot at me
as  anybody else.  He  said, however, that if I decided  to go I
should have the ambulance and  any help I needed. I  decided no
help was necessary, but took the ambulance and driver and went
to Lincoln that night.  Mr.  Mills, the  deputy  sheriff who had
been shot  had a half-brother  at the post by the name of Stan-
ley and I had heard the story of one of their shooting experiences
when little  fellows.  They were  practising with pistols and had
become  so  expert that one day they tried  the experiment  of
holding something  out in one hand for the other to shoot at,
but as this was not exciting enough, one of them extended his
arm and pointed out  his index  finger  and said to  the other:
"See, if you can  clip the end of that."  He clipped a little too
much for I had seen Stanley's hand and the finger was off at the
first joint  from the end.  "You fool, you, you  took  too much.
Now give me a chance."  The other being willing to play fair,
extended his finged the same way and lost the same  amount of
finger.  This was the story, and I was  curious to see Mr. Mills
hand which I took good care to observe while dressing his wound
and found it  almost exactly  like Stanley's.  Mr. Mills'  wound
was by a shot that entered near the heart, struck a rib and did 
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LITTLE  PILLS
not enter the plural cavity, but followed the rib around and came
out on the back  and was not a  very serious wound.
    The Sutler's store at Fort Stanton was  up-stream some dis-
tance and just around the point of a little canon that led down
to the river.  A path from the corner of the parade ground led
up to the  store but there  was only a narrow space between the
point of the  canon and the  ditch that supplied the post with
water. There was also a bridge across the ditch at the Sutler's
store, for  the convenience of getting in and  taking  out  goods.
One dark  night I  had been up to the store and started  home,
and after  going a short distance, I concluded  I had crossed the
ditch on the bridge, instead of going along the narrow strip be-
tween the  ditch and canon. To save time and  retracing of steps
I concluded to jum into the ditch.  I knew  it was wide and re-
quired a  good jump but I found  that instead of jumping the
ditch, I had jumped off the  bluff into the  canon.  Fortunately
it had been made a dumping ground for chips and trash from the
wood-yard, and I landed on  this  trash and rolled the balance
of the way to the bottom of the canon among the rocks,  prob-
ably twenty-five or thirty feet. My first thought was that I was
seriously hurt, but after groaning a while and finding no bones
broken, I  got up  and felt my way out at the top of the  canon
near the Sutler's  store. I was very sore for a few days but no
serious injuries resulted.
    In March of  this year Captain Fechet  (pronounced Fe-sha,
accent on  the last syllable),  with  his troop of cavalry, was or-
dered to go over  on the Jornada del Muerto,  and try to  find a
shorter route across that desert from  Fort Stanton  to Fort
Selden, and I  was sent along. We took the  usual route to Fort
McRae, where I again met Dr. Lyons, the post surgeon, whom I
had visited at this point when I was post surgeon at Fort Craig
in 1869.  We found the doctor at dinner when we arrived. The
cloth was  spread  at one end of the table and just beyond the
cloth, at the farther end, was a human skull, with  the  neces-
sary instruments,  which the doctor had been dissecting.  It  struck
me as a rather strange mixture of diet and scientific investiga-
tion.  It is hardly necessary to say that  the doctor  was not a 
LITTLE  PILLS
109
married man, for no woman would stand for that sort of table
decoration, but would probably prefer a bunch of flowers as a
center-piece for  the  table.   Some  unfortunate  had been fished
out of the river, and no relations  having  been found, the body
was considered of service for a better knowledge of anatomy.
    From Fort McRae we went to the Aleman, or as it was better
known, Jack Martin's, where  we stayed over night,  and from
there we went to Fort Selden and remained several days. While
there the  captain and I made a trip to Las Cruces where we re-
mained over night, and had a very pleasant evening with some
Catholic priests,  where we  were cordially received  and enter-
tained.  On our return to Fort Selden we  again took up the
march to  Fort Stanton but did not leave the beaten track either
going  or  coming.  We had taken some  half-dozen  Mescalero
Apache Indians along with us  as guides and scouts, but I could
never see that we accomplished anything by  the trip,  or that
we made  any effort  to  do so.
    Along about the first of April I  received a suit  of clothes
from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, that I had ordered the previous
September upon my  return from the summer camp on the Rio
Grande.   It had not  occurred to me that I might have changed
some  in physique, but  when I got the clothes  I found  that I
could only wear the  pants by  putting a V-shape in the back of
the waistband and I  could only wear the vest by inserting pieces
below the arm-holes, but the coat was  entirely too small to be
of any practical service.  My  experience in  the mountains had
evidently  made quite a  different type of man  out of me, and I
should have had my  measure taken again before sending orders
to the tailor.
    Soon  after  our  return from the trip to find a  new route
across the Jornada, I received a letter from Doctor Lyons ask-
ing me to  exchange stations with him. I wrote back that I would
make the  change if he would make the application, which he did,
and orders soon came directing the change.   We started from
Stanton the latter part  of April, with the  usual ambulance, and
wagon and baggage, and an escort to care for us on the way.
Between the White mountains and the lower range to the west 
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LITTLE  PILLS
is quite a wide valley which is called the Malpais (or bad coun-
try)  near the center of which is a lava flow a few hundred yards
wide. The crater, or peak from which  it  came is  not in the
mountain range as one  would naturally  suppose it to be but
stands out near the middle of the valley,  maybe ten miles  above
where we crossed.  The  outlines  of the  streams are quite  dis-
tinct until some distance  below, where it is lost in a great white
plain of alkali.  There had been much work done  to make a road
across this lava flow passable for vehicles,  but it was still very
rough when we crossed it, so much so that  my wife preferred to
walk, and nearly wore her shoe soles out in doing so.  When did
this  lava flow occur?  I don't know.  Maybe ten  thousand years
ago,  but it looked as though it might  have been last week.
    There were quite  a number of little cone-shaped  mounds
in this valley, and I examined some of those close to the road.
They varied in size, and none that I saw  were more than ten or
twelve feet in height, and they all had  craters, containing  black-
ish looking  water.  In some of them  the water seemed  to be
higher than the valley in  which they were  located.
    We camped on the second night in the foothills  of  the San
Andres range, and the following  evening at  the Oho De Anija.
These springs were interesting because of the great amount of
painted and broken pottery to  be found  nearby.  I  think  some
excavating might bring  to light whole pieces of value to the
archaeologist.  The  spring is  located  only  a few  miles  from
Paraja on the Rio Grande, and at the extreme northern limit of
the Jornada  del Muerto,  and the next day we arrived  at Fort
McRae. 
CHAPTER XII.
    McRae was a  one company post,  and located  on a  little
bench of land at the side of the canon that led down to the Rio
Grande   from  the  Frau  Christobel mountains.  There  were
no square for a parade ground but all buildings faced toward the
canon, of which at  this point was not abrupt but  sloped gradu-
ally to the bottom.
    The officers' quarters were very comfortable, being built of
heavy adobe walls, and covered with dirt, consequently were warm
in winter and cool in summer.  The rooms were large and had the
usual jaspa floors common to the military posts along the Rio
Grande.  Government blankets are first laid on these floors and
over them is laid the  carpet and both are nailed down  with lath
or shingle nails, with leather heads,  to hold the carpet in place.
There was a fireplace  in both living and dining rooms and water
was  obtained at a spring in the canon, a  short distance away.
While the quarters  were comfortable the outlook and  surround-
ings were anything but attractive.   The view  from  the front
porch was of a bleak  cactus covered ridge across the canon, and
this was limited in extent and back of the post the canon rose
abruptly to a great height.   Up the canon was  the barracks of
the men, and farther  up was the Sutler's store.  Below the offi-
cers'  quarters,  was the  quartermaster and  commissary  store-
houses and  corrals  and stables.
    For  some time we were  quite reconciled to the  situation.
Both the commanding officer, Captain Farnsworth and his lieu-
tenant,  a Mr.  Carlton, wTere bachelors, and were courteous and
pleasant  gentlemen.    They  did  not   remain   long,  how-
ever,  after our  arrival  at  the post,  but  were  superseded
by Captain  Kauffmann and Mr. Fountain, the latter a West
Pointer, but Captain  Kauffman was raised from the ranks, and
to me never seemed to fit the promoted position he held.  Mr.
Fountain on the contrary, I thought, gave  promise of  becoming
a distinguished officer.  Until they came, my wife was the only
officer's wife at the post, and with the addition of Mrs. Kauffman 
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LITTLE  PILLS
it could hardly be considered a  great social  center.  We made
the most of it, however, and were fairly  well satisfied with our
position.
    During the early part of the  summer we attended an en-
tertainment given  by the men  at  the barracks,  and our little
girl caught cold.  At first we thought it only  a  temporary ill-
ness and that she would 'soon be better, but in this we were  dis-
appointed. She gradually lost appetite and grew  weaker and  I
wrote  to  Dr. Boughter,  post surgeon at  Fort Craig, requesting
him to come and see her, which he did.  We concluded the water
at the post was bad for her, as it was strongly impregnated with
alkali, and we  though it best to take her out to  Jack Martin's
ranch, where we knew the water was good.  Captain Kauffman
was very considerate about the proposed  change, and we agreed
that I  should  return to the post three  times  a  week  to  look
after  any who needed medical  attention.  This  trip could be
made in one day on horse-back,  the distance for the round trip
being  about forty miles.  We got out there the  latter  part of
July, but within a few  days realized more fully the serious  na-
ture of our little  daughter's illness.  Dr. Boughter came from
Fort Craig to see her but could give us no encouragement.
    The Scotch are a superstitious  folk,  and up  to the age of
fourteen I was raised in an atmosphere  of superstition.  They
had signs and omens, and attributed a personality  to everything,
animate and inanimate. While they denied a belief in spirits and
hob-goblins, I am satisfied these things  influenced their lives.
I remember two old crones at an uncle's,  wizened  up old maids,
that I think were no relation, but  just  lived there, who used
to tell us little ones spook and ghost stories until I was afraid
to go  to bed in the next  room,  or out  of doors  at night.  It
seemed to be in the blood and Walter Scott's books are full of it.
This may explain  in  a way  my hope  that something would
happen that would bring our little one back to health again.   My
frequent trips to the post and sitting up at night to give my wife
a little rest, which she so sorely  needed,  together with  my
anxiety,  had probably made me  morbid, for one day,  August
14th, as I remember, I was on my way to the post.  It was a 
LITTLE  PILLS
113
very hot day and the atmosphere was shimmering with radiated
heat, and not a living thing was to be seen over that vast, deso-
late Jornada del Muerto, except maybe a lizard scurrying across
the road, and I was half-way or more to the head of that canon
in which the post was located, when a little grayish-brown bird
suddenly appeared from somewhere, and fluttered over the horses'
head just out of reach of  my hand.  I  accepted it  at once and
without question, as a messenger sent  to me, and my anxiety
was to interpret its message.  I  tried to reach it with my hand,
but it kept just out of reach,  and presently lit in the road in
front.   I immediately  got  off my horse,  and taking the lariat
rope in my hand, walked  up to it,  but it kept  moving out of
the way, but only just out of  reach. I again got on my horse
but had no sooner  done so,  than it came back again and flut-
tered over the horse's head. From there it flew  to  a cactus
bush by the roadside,  and  I got off  my horse again and walked
up to the  bush and took my canteen—no one  travels through
such a  country without a  canteen of water—and holding it  up
over the bush poured out a little stream of water.  The bird at
once gathered from the leaves, such drops as lodged, and seemed
greatly delighted.  I then pressed my left hand,  back downward,
into the sand, and holding the canteen up poured a  little  stream
of water into the palm of  my hand. The bird  at  once left  its
perch, and flew down  and  lit near my  hand,  and after a little
debating with herself,  hopped up on  my hand and drank, and at
each swallow would look up at  me  as if to  say, 'Oh, I am so
thankful."  I was greatly comforted and got on  my horse again
feeling  that my hopes would be realized, and that  I would find
my little child  on the  road to recovery,  upon  my return in the
evening. I had only gone  a  short distance when the little bird
again flew around in front of me and again fluttered its wings
just out of reach of my hand.   I got off again and this  time
did not take the lariat rope down, but merely stepped up by the
horse's  head, stooped down and pressed  my hand in the sand as
before, and the bird did not hesitate,  but came at once, and stood
on many hand and  drank  the  water, and when its thirst was
fully satisfied it hopped away, and I got on my  horse and went 
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LITTLE PILLS
on to the post.  When I returned that  evening I found our little
child no better and she  died that night.
    A messenger was sent to the post and the ambulance came
the following day with a little coffin made at the quartermaster's
and the trip back to the post was to us indeed the "Journey of
Death."  Our home was so desolate that I became more morbid
than ever,  and was soon taken down with  typhoid  dysentery,
and Dr. Boughter came from the Fort Craig to wait on me. My
recovery was very slow and I was indifferent to  anything that
might happen.  My wife at last became discouraged and she and
Captain Kauffman talked the situation over, and after consulting
Dr. Boughter  concluded to have me taken  to  Fort Craig for
treatment.   I  was  not informed of their  conclusion, and  when
they told me the ambulance was at the door,  and a bed in it and
that I as going to Fort Craig,  it did not  even interest me.  If
they had told me I was going to the cemetery I would have been
just as well satisfied with the arrangement, although they thought
I would be interested because of having been post surgeon there
some years before.  After  I  was at Fort Craig  a few  days, I
began to take some interest in life  and  thought I  would like
to see  what changes had been made, and the more I thought
about it, the more interest I took until I finally  wanted to see
for myself.  With this awakening I began to have some appetite
for food, and  I soon began to gain strength and  as I improved
I wanted to cross the river  and see my old hunting grounds. All
these things undoubtedly contributed to my  recovery for I soon
made rapid progress toward good health again.  The doctor had
given us his quarters to occupy while there and there were hand-
somely furnished and we were  made most comfortable.   It was
then the latter part of September and the nights were cool and
the days pleasant.  We took our meals at the officers* mess and
had good things to eat, and I shall always remember how delic-
ious the pigeon squabs were to me.  Before returning  to Fort
McRae the doctor  and I planned to hunt across the  river.  One
of the  officers had a gun he would loan us,  and the  doctor said
the blacksmith had one, and  he had no doubt he would loan it.
I preferred going for it myself, as I wanted  to see the shop and 
LITTLE PILLS
115
house close to the bluff where the blacksmith lived. The  black-
smith was very well pleased to loan his gun, but said one  barrel
was loaded, and he shot it off and handed the gun to me, saying,
"Now it is all right."   It was a muzzle-loader and after wiping
it out carefully at the  doctor's quarters I found one of the tubes
were stopped up.  I put a cap on the tube and in place of taking
the gun out of doors, or pointing it in  the  fireplace,  I merely
turned the muzzle down toward the carpet and pulled the trigger.
A report  followed that astonished the doctor, my wife and my-
self, who were all taking interest in the preparation for the hunt.
The shot tore through the carpet and into the jaspa floor and
sent the plaster flying in all  directions, and made a hole  in the
floor big  enough  to bury a small-sized dog. Another instance of
where the gun that was not loaded, did serious damage, but fortu-
nately no one was hurt.
    The post had changed very little since I was there five years
before but  I took great interest in  seeing everything.   Doctor
Boughter was a bachelor, a man of ability  in his profession, an
accomplished gentleman,  and a  friend in our great affliction.
    On our return to Fort McRae, while I felt  a great repugnance
to ever seeing the  place again, I was more resigned to what I
considered the inevitable that is, that death comes to everybody,
is  one of nature's laws, and is the  culminating process, just as
birth is the beginning  of life.   When we reached the  head  of the
canon leading down to the  post  I was able to look  upon the in-
cident of my experience with the little bird, from a very different
point  of view.
    It was now  clear enough  to  me, that  there was  nothing
miraculous or unnatural about it, but that for some cause  it had
simply become separated from the flock to which it belonged, for
they are  generally found in flocks along  with cattle.  I think it
was the female and may have gone to some other bird's nest to
deposit its egg, as is its habit, for I had studied it closely while
drinking out of my hand, and recognized it  as one  of the cow-
birds  or buntings, and I have since been able  to identify it as
belonging among  the blackbirds and orioles or  the icteridae of the
ornothologist, its special division being Molothrus Aster, a divis- 
116
LITTLE PILLS
ion found in Texas and  Southern New Mexico, but I think not
much farther north.  The sexes are difficult to distinguish at a
distance, differing in  this respect from their near relatives far-
ther north, where the male is a glossy black with chocolate col-
ored head and  neck.  Whatever  the cause may have been this
one was evidently lost, and  was famishing for water, and recog-
nized the horse as a friend,  and in no way could have considered
me in that relation, it came to my hand  simply and only  as a
matter of necessity.  It was pleasant to relieve the thirst of the
little lost bird, but I shall never again think of it as in any way
supernatural.                                             ' 
CHAPTER XIII.
    Our quarters were just as we had left them but with the
added feeling  of desolation, and from that time we  frequently
discussed the question  of leaving the service.  It being then well
toward winter we deferred it until spring, and we spent the time
until then performing our duties in a perfunctory way, and plan-
ning and rejecting plans as  we  made them,  being undecided
where to locate.  I spent a part of the time in hunting with more
or less  success, but more as a recreation than as a matter of
interest. On one of these trips I killed three antelopes with two
shots, being the only  ones seen that day.  I managed to get in
good range and when the first one fell the other two ran together
and stood looking at the fallen one. They stood so that a shot
through the flank of one would hit the other just back f the
shoulder.  I dressed the first one and got it on the horse  and
found the second some two hundred yards away, but by the time
I had it on the horse it was  too dark t otrack  the third.  Next
morning I went out and found only the bones and some pieces of
the hide, the wolves having cared for the rest of it.  On another
occasion I took an orderly with me to care for my horse in case I
found occasion to stalk any game, but when we got into a valley
which  was the  customary route  for  ^ndians  from the White
mountains on the east, to the Magdalenas west of the river, some
horsemen came in at the head of the valley, and set up a yell and
at that  distance  we took  them for Indians and did not wait
for a closer acquaintance but made for the post with all pos-
sible speed.                                               ,y!
    My wife visited that winter at Fort Selden with Mrs. Con-
rad, wife of Lieutenant Conrad, who was quartermaster at Fort
Stanton  when we were there, and  who died at sea on  his way
back from  the Spanish war in Cuba.
    We  were  in the habit at Fort McRae of trading an army
ration to which I was  entitled, in  addition to my pay, to Mexi-
cans for vegetables, eggs, etc., or  paying cash as  the  occasion
offered.  One day a Mexican brought a grain sack full of onions 
118
LITTLE  PILLS
and  we weighed them and  found they weighed a little over
forty-one pounds.  I agreed to pay him four cents a pound, but
said to  him we will call it  forty pounds and allow the balance
for the weight of the  sack.  He could not speak English but I
could talk Spanish enough to make him understand and he would
nod  his head and say  "Bueno"' (Good)  but  when I counted out
the money he did not  seem satisfied.  I went over it repeatedly
showing it was one dollar and sixty cents and he would nod his
head and say 'Bueno" but went away  and brought another Mex-
ican with  him who understood  and talked  English, and when
he heard the transaction  repeated he called  his fellow country-
man a fool and they walked away together.  I counted the on-
ions after  they had gone, and there  were  just twenty-four of
them.   I like to tell this story  to my  friends,  for  while they
smile their assent, there  is  an  expression  on their faces that
it at least  suggestive.  Two or three of the  onions that I meas-
ured were  over eighteen inches in circumference.  These onions
were raised in the Rio  Grande valley and were as crisp as celery,
and  comparatively free from the characteristic sting of the or-
dinary onion.   Eggs were fifty cents  per dozen and if one did
not need any today, they  would take them back home, and per-
haps bring them tomorrow at the same price, but would not take
less.  We  paid  one dollar per pound for butter to Mrs. Jack
Martin  who  sent  it to us by the messenger who went there
for our mail, and it was very choice butter.
    At  the Sutler's store one day I  was introduced to  a  Mr.
Garcia,  a  youg man of fine appearance, and who could talk
English well,  who had  returned from  the university for his va-
cation.  I found him very interesting  and intelligent, and while
we were talking, Mr. Ayers, the post trader, brought us some
native wine which we sipped while  in conversation. He belonged
to a wealthy  family of Spanish descent and  was quite a  differ-
ent type from the ordinary  Mexican, and would compare  favor-
ably with  our average university  student.  After he had gone
Mr. Ayers told me his name in full was "Hasoos Christo Garcia."
I spell it this  way to give the Spanish pronunciation, and not the
Spanish spelling. In the middle  name the accent is on the first 
LITTLE  PILLS
119
 syllable.  In  English  the  name  would be Jesus Christ Garcia,
 and this is  not mentioned  in this startling way, in any spirit of
 irreverence, for a name that is held sacred over a great part of
 the world,  but  is done for the  purpose of showing the differ-
 ence in the customs of different countries.  Jesus Christ  is al-
 most as common a given name among the Mexicans as James or
 John is  with  us.
     While at  Fort McRae Mr. Fountain had heard of a beautiful
 place on the  Rio Polomas, a little stream that enters the Rio
 Grande from  the  west a few  miles below the post, and that he
 thought might be worth investigating. I agreed to join him and
 we had a few troopers detached as an escort, and went to see it.
 On  the way  we passed through the little Mexican village of
 Polomas, where a Jew had established a business and who had
 told Mr. Fountain of the proposed place of visit.  He  joined us
 and acted as guide for the trip.  On the way while working our
 way through  a  thick  undergrowth Mr. Fountain and  I became
 separated from the men and came out on a pretty open park of a
 few acres in extent,  about  the middle of which was an immense
 cinnamon bear,  apparently waiting to see what caused the dis-
 turbance in the brush.  On  our  coming into the  open he took
 to his heels and we followed, the men having joined us, and firing
 our pistols and shouting, but when my horse caught the scent of
 the bear, he just stopped and  stood there trembling with fright,
 and all my efforts to make him go by spurring and cuffing him,
 were unavailing.  I could not move him, but sat there and awaited
 his pleasure.  After  a bit he began to move cautiously but was
 much frightened,  and  I did not  join  the crowd until they had
 chased the bear  into the rocks at  the foot of the canon, and had
 returned to  the  place we intended to visit.  It was  a  beautiful
 place indeed, and a beautiful stream of water  came out from the
 side of the  bluff some twenty feet above the  valley, and mean-
 andered down  to the main stream. The valley was not wide but
 impressed both Mr.  Fountain and myself,  as a desirable place
 to establish  a ranch, which he was desirous of doing for a brother
 he wished to set up in business.  I  agreed to join him in the
enterprise, and we sent for a  Studebaker wagon and the neces- 
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LITTLE  PILLS
sary implements and outfit for starting a ranch.   I afterwards
disposed of my interest to Mr. Fountain, and have  since learned
that he had his brother come out, and fitted him up with stock,
etc., sufficient  for a start, but that the Indians took  a part in
the affair; destroyed his ranch  and killed his cattle.  I have
since  then, often thought of it as a desirable place for a cattle
ranch.
    In the spring of 1875, there having been no medical exam-
ining board ordered, and so far as we knew no prospect of one,
we fully decided to try our  lives in a different way, and made
preparations accordingly.   I ordered a metallic casket for  the
body  of  our little daughter,  believing that the post would soon
be abandoned, and we  could  not bear the idea  of leaving her in
that wretched place, and  the first part of May we packed such
household goods as we thought  desirable to take with us, only
leaving such as I might need  after my wife should start, it being
by  intention to go during the summer  or  early fall.  My wife
started about the middle of May and soon afterwards the casket
came, and the  captain gave  me  a detail of men to take up  the
body  of  our little girl and place it in the quartermaster's store-
house until we  should decide where to have it shipped.  This we
were to do after I! should join my wife and decided  on a location
for a home.  My wife had gone to her old friend's home west of
Oswego, Kansas, where she had  stopped on a previous occasion
when we thought of leaving  the service.  On application, Doctor
Lyon returned to his old post at Fort McRae and I went to Stan-
ton in July ad about the first of September together with  Mr.
Clark, who  was going on  leave  of absence, I  proceeded to  the
end of the railroad at Las Animas,  Colorado,  and thence to
Leavenworth, Kansas, where  I reported to the medical director of
the department and left the service  October 30th, 1875.
    Upon my return to Fort Stanton from  Fort McRae I found
Mr. Stanley, the one who had his finger shot off when a boy, was
just able to hobble about  again from an experience he had with
a cannamon bear.  He had gone out to some ranch where they
were  losing some of their stock, particularly their pigs, by what
they thought to be a bear, and Stanley went out to kill it.  He 
LITTLE PILLS
121
was an excellent shot, was fearless and deliberate and found the
bear as he expected, but in some unaccountable  way which he
could not  explain, he failed to stop it, and the result was most
disastrous to himself.   It had torn one  side of his face away,
and had broken both legs and one arm, before leaving him.  They
found him the  next day and brought him to a hospital and he
was  able to  get around  on crutches when I saw him, but would
be a cripple for life.  The ranchmen  went out and finished the
bear, but  it  was found  he had nine shots through his body be-
fore giving up  the  fight.
    The military reservation at Fort Stanton was the largest of
any post at  which I served, and is located as before mentioned
on what was then known as the Mescalero Apache Indian reser-
vation.  These  Indians  were considered friendly,  and so far as
I know have remained so, and they are the only tribe of Indians
of which  I have acquaintance who cremate their dead.  I was
invited  one  day to go  with the  hay contractor, who intended
making the rounds of his various hay camps, and on the way we
passed through an Indian camp not far from the post at which
there was a  sick Indian. We stopped to  inquire as to his condi-
tion.  It seems  that a day or so before they had gone to the post
for medicine, and had said the patient was suffering great pain,
and asked for  some physic.  The  post surgeon, a Spaniard by
birth, and educated abroad, understood the term  pfiysic in its
generic  sense and not as it is so universally used by us, and  had
sent him opiates, when a cathartic was probably indicated. When
we saw him  that day, which we did from our saddles, as we did
not dismount, he was greatly  swollen up, and when we passed
the same  neighborhood  a few days afterwards, the  Indian  had
died and his  tent and all his belongings including a pony to ride,
had been burned and the band  had moved across the river  and
established a new camp. 
CHAPTER XIV.
             (Social  Life  at  the  Military Posts.)

     The social life at the  military posts on the frontier, nearly
 a half  century ago,  was  necessarily  very limited.  Except at
 Fort Sill, I served at  no post at which more than two companies
 of troops comprised the garrison,  and even in these cases there
 was not always the full complement of officers, some  probably
 being on detached service, or maybe  on  leave of absence.  As
 before remarked, Fort McRae was only a one company post,  and
 at no time were there more than  three officers, and there were
 only two officers' wives.  There were no social relations outside
 of the post, and no effort  or  disposition to form acquaintances.
 The nearest military post was fifty or more miles away, and  the
 exception to the usual dull routine of life in  such an isolated
 place,  was  when some fellow  officer happened  to  come  our
 way, enroute to some other post, maybe for assignment to duty
 or maybe on detached service.  Another exception was when  the
 paymaster made  his appearance to pay off the garrison, which
 he  did  every two  months.  These  were  always  enjoyable  oc-
 casions, and we would sit  up  late and talk about everything of
 interest at the different posts, or of what may have been seen
 or heard on the way.   This was the most isolated  and desolate
 of all the posts at which I served.  It was about twenty miles
 from the southern overland stage line, and we had to send  a mes-
 senger from the  post for our mail which we did three times a
 week.  Magazines and such reading  matter as could be brought
 by mail helped cheer  our lonely lives,  so that taken altogether,
 it was a good deal better than being in the penitentiary.
     At  Fort Garland,  though only two  companies  were sta-
 tioned there during my  service at the post, there were about  the
 full complement of officers, several of whom were married, and
 it proved to be un unusually pleasant place socially.  There was
 no formality, and so far as I know this was true at all the mili-
tary posts on the frontier,  except  at Fort Craig where  my wife 
LITTLE PILLS
123
was not with me, but  on the contrary there was a feeling  of
mutual interest and sympathy that made it seem like one family.
We would meet at some officer's quarters for dinner or luncheon,
and maybe  at  some other officer's  quarters in the evening  to
play a social game of cards, and the officers' wives would make
informal visits with  each other  and maybe spend an hour  or
so, very  much as if they were sisters.
     Fort Sill was one of the largest military posts in the service
at that time, and there were twenty or more officers there, prob-
ably half of whom were married and had their  families with
them. It will be readily seen that this made quite a social center.
     There were frequent military dances or "hops" as they were
called  in the service.   There were also card parties, not always
by invitation, but maybe a half-dozen would be talking together,
and would decide to drop into  some officer's quarters for a game
of cards, others were likely to drop in also, so that sometimes
there would be quite a crowd of us together to spend the evening.
I thought the  informality of these  meetings  added very  much
to their charm.
     There was a good  library at  this post which  was liberally
patronized by the officers and their families,  and also by the
enlisted men.
     A jockey club was formed among the officers and a race-
course laid out on the flat south of the post, and  race meetings
were held on Saturday  afternoons, which afforded a great deal
of pleasure  and amusement.  In  one of these races which was
to take place in the course of a month, it was agreed that each
officer should ride his own horse.  The difference  in the weight
of the riders it was thought, would be  an important factor  in
determining the results.  Major Van de Weyle weighed one hun-
dred and ninety pounds while Mr. Lebo weighed  only one hun-
dred and fifteen pounds.  They all had good horses and the race
was looked forward to with great  interest.  The major was jol-
lied a good deal about his weight,  but he insisted that he would
be able to train down, and he would show them  what his horse,
which  was a fine one, could do.  The race-course was a mile  in
length and it was supposed  the  heavyweights would  stand  no 
124
LITTLE PILLS
show, but Captain Walsh, who weighed one hundred and sixty-
five  pounds, won the race and Major Van de Weyle, who had
increased six pounds  in weight, came in fourth, in a bunch of
seven,  who started in the race.
    In addition to  the  social life  at the  post, the fishing and
hunting were good for those  of us who cared  to indulge in that
kind of sport. Both Medicine Bluff and Cache creeks were fine
fishing streams, and I found congenial company in one or two
of the officers who enjoyed  the fishing as much as I did my-
self.   Among those most pleasantly  remembered,  was a  Mr.
Pratt,  a lieutenant in  one of  the cavalry companies ar the  post
He was an expert fisherman and a  cordial good fellow and I
have always thought of our fishing trips with  pleasure.
    After we  left Fort Sill he was detached from his command
and put in charge of  the educational interests of the Indians.
    He became a distinguished officer in this  work.  When still
a  lieutenant he established the Indian school at Carlisle, Pa.,
a well  known industrial school, in  1879, and was superintendent
until 1904.  In 1916,  when my wife  and  I were on our golden
wedding  trip  we met him again  at Nye Beach,  Oregon,  and
were pleased to renew our acquaintance after more than forty-
five  years.
    His distinguished services raised him to the rank of briga-
dier general, and he is now on the retired list of the army.
    At Camp  Limestone there were three officers and two  of-
ficers'  wives.  We had acquaintances at Fort  Scott and Girard,
who either visited us  or made the  customary calls.  These, with
the officers and others who came  in  the shooting season, made
up the social features of the  camp.
    In those days drinking was far more  prevalent, both in the
army and out of it, than it is today.  If think none but the  old
people  of  today can have the  correct "view-point" of the dif-
ference in which the  use of  alcoholic beverages was  considered
fifty years ago and now.  At that time  it was  not  considered
harmful, but rather commendable, if not  taken to excess, as a
means of  promoting social intercourse, and except at Fort  Sill
it  was to be had at all the post trader's  stores at the military 
LITTLE PILLS                    125
posts on the frontier, and at most of them it was  on the side-
board or on the mantle  over the fire-place,  in the  officers' bil-
liard room free to those who cared to use it.  Of course, even in
those days, there were  those  who talked very energetically if
not violently against the use  of it and  some preachers  would
even tell you you  would  go to  hell if you drank  it.   But people
don't scare easily, and you would maybe think about it and take
another drink, concluding that maybe there is no hell, or if there
is you won't go there, or maybe the preacher didn't know any-
thing about it anyway. Since then the scientific medical man has
come to the front. He does not try to scare you, but he has some
scientific  facts which he has fully proven, and tells you  about
them, among these are:  it promotes  hardening  of  the arteries
(Arterio Sclerosis);  it produces fatty degeneration and  other
diseases of the liver; it impairs digestion; it interferes with the
assimilation of food; it impairs heart acton, and has many other
injurious  effects on the system, such as preparing it for fatal
results in pneumonia and  most of the acute inflammatory  dis-
eases.
     He appeals to your reason in place of to  your fears,  and you
are bound to take notice. The result is a vast difference in pub-
lic opinion regarding its use then and now.
    In the army it was used almost exclusively in a social way.
There were occasional excesses, but these were not of frequent
occurrence and there was one restraining influence; the fear of
court-martial.
    It will be readily understood that there were  so-called "black
sheep" in the army  as well as in the churches, and in  the  fra-
ternal orders.  In the army, however, there was no hesitancy
in getting rid of them, a thing I have seldom known to be done
either in the churches or  in the fraternal orders, and this  was
by means of court-martial.  No matter what  the specific charges
may have been, there is generally, if not always added this one:
"Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman."  This it  will
be readily  seen covers a wide range,  and permits thorough in-
vestigation of character  and the very terms of this charge in- 
126
LITTLE PILLS
dicates not only the high character that is expected, but that is
demanded of an  officer in  the service.
    I had been in the army nearly  seven years with no chance
for promotion,  and while feeling some doubt as to  my success
in private life we felt it to be the best thing to leave the service.
We decided to  live at  Girard, Kansas, and  came  to this place
in November of that year.
    Two  things  have  particularly   impressed  me,  in looking
back over the nearly half century since I entered  the service—
one is the amazing development of the west, and the other is the
wonderful evolution in the practice of medicine and surgery.  As
an example of the first, take Kansas—not because it is Kansas,
but because it is typical of  the great west.  Population in 1870,
364,399; in 1914, 1,677,106.  Wheat crop in 1871, 4,614,924 bush-
els; in 1914, 180,925,885 bushels. And other crops in proportion.
The western  half of the state  was then practically uninhabited.
Today it is the  great wheat belt of  the country.
    When I entered the service people died wholesale from dipth-
theria, typhoid fever and inflammation of the bowels.  Bacter-
iology, the great searchlight of medicine, as we have it today,
was then  practically unknown. Today we innoculate against ty-
phoid fever and are  immune.   Today  we operate for appendi-
citis and inflammation of the bowels practically disappears from
our list of diseases.  Today we give antitoxin and the child's
life is  saved.  We used to expect pus after a surgical operation
and were disappointed  if we  did not  get a so-called "healthy
pus."'  Today the surgeon would be ashamed of it.
    Both  before leaving the army and since, I have had people
refer to our army officers and their families, with some degree
of aspersion, saying they were too  proud and would not speak
to common folk; that they were aristocrats, and much other non-
sense.  Possibly their isolated condition when I was  in the serv-
ice, gave  some  color to such  accusations, but as  far as I  can
estimate them,  if they are an aristocracy, it  is an aristocracy of
merit; of  intellect; of honor; of integrity; of loyalty; of a strong
sense of duty and many other worthy  qualities that mark them
as distinguished from any other kind of aristocracy we have in 
LITTLE PILLS
127
this country,  and I think particularly from  our so-called  aris-
tocracy of wealth, so often associated  with snobbery, and whose
daughters so often present the nauseating spectacle, of trading
themselves off to some degenerate and profligate descendant of
inherited title and giving a million to boot.
    Just now, 1918, we hear a great deal about the army and
the necessity  of increasing its numbers, and much about its of-
ficers, but do we ever hear anything about the officers' wives?
They may not be of great importance now, but how was it forty
or fifty years ago?  At that time the great western half of our
country was practically unsettled.  There were few railroads, and
no transcontinental line until  1869.  Denver and Santa Fe were
considered mere  trading posts.   There were  only  two overland
stage lines and no settlements of consequence.  The military posts
were  scattered over this vast region, separated  from each other
by many miles of distance and the ever present  danger of attack
from Indians.  How about the wives of the army officers of that
day, who shared  with their husbands the dangers and hardships
of frontier life ? I wish here to pay my tribute to one who shared
with me all of the sorrows, and most of the hardships herein re-
lated, and many  others not considered of sufficient importance
to mention.  One who seldom complained; whose courage never
faltered; whose  abiding faith often prompted  her to say, "It
will all come  out for the best in the end."
    Thus, we have traveled  along  life's pathway, with its joys
and sorrows,  until now we realize  that we have crossed the di-
vide,  and  are going down the western slope.  The shadows are
growing longer,  the valley is not  far distant,  night is coming
on, it will soon be taps and the lights will go  out. 
 
 
 
 
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