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SMOKE.
Light-winged smoke; Icarian bird,
, Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight;
l Lark without song, and messenger of dawu,
It Circling above the hamlets as thy nest.
r/ —Henry D. Thoreau.
r AT THE STAKE.
-
■f I came (said old west Sol when Taylor, I was 17 years of
of Georgetown,
tjj., the other day), and now I’m a bit
over CO. You can figger that up and see
how long I've been skirmishing with In
#ians, grizzlies, panthers, rattlesnakes
find the other pesky varmints of moun
lain, plain and prairie. There hasn't
pen an Indian war for the last half cen
bury that I haven’t had a hand in, and I
reckon I’ve had as many stand up fights
pn my own liook as any scout or hunter
■rou can name. I have been captured
■md put to the torture twice, and been
Raptured and got away without torture
three or four times. In times of peace I
1 have lived with the Pawnees, Kiowas,
jMeet, Apaches, Sioux, Cheyennes and Black
and in times of war I have fought
pl these tribes. Mebbe I am, therefore,
purty good judge of Indian natur’, and
vhen you ask me which tribe of redskins
|as |t tlie most Indian lioner, that I reply I would that I never
Bd. saw an trust a
The only reason that some of ’em
|ave served the government as scouts
nd traitors is because they happened to
ate their own kind just then a little
ross than they did the white man.
dtvever, you want some of my own ad
ures, and I will give you one.
pefore the days of railroads in the west
" SAL an who was spilin’ for an Indian fight
Id get it within rifle shot of Fort
umey, and this state of affairs contin
ued jip to 1866 and later. The last time
I Tfras captured was on the Smoky Hill
fart of the Kansas river, and it was wliile
the railroad was being pushed across the
state of Kansas. A railroad through the
Indian country meant goodby to game
Bad goodby to the Indian. The redskin
Ipteed this as forcibly as the white man,
ilia he was on hand to fight the progress
|f Pappose |he road. that the He killing was foolish off of enough few to
a scouts
fol |y the surveyors time would stop all work, and
the road was half way across
lie state of Kansas every Indian who liad
I by patriotism about him was in front of
and doing battle. The contractors had
fe*employ a great many scouts and fight
p to protect the advance men, and I was
ine of those thus engaged. In the five,
jnonths of my employment I killed thirty
pjge Indians and brought thirty-nine
i! to camp, and there were other
couts who did as well, or better. We
lidfnot lose near as many men in propor
pn, as we fought entirely on the de¬
prive, and had all the advantage,
j My capture occurred one morning in
pptember. ball had been One of the engineers and wliile of the
on a spree, verg
ig on delirium tremens had left camp
wandered off. He had been gone
vo or three hours before he was missed,
n<| of at midnight started of a rainy, foot gusty hunt night him
X us out on to
W As no one knew the direction he
ad taken, each of us went his own way.
'iere were plenty of Indians around us,
d a scout had been w-ounded that after
>n within half a mile of our camp.
. bh man of us who went out took big
hances of being captured, but there was
oiiesitating or hanging back on tliat ac
)imt. Our camp was close to the river,
tq ■ream. my first The move was to cross than the
water was no more
K\ K'st deep, and I had no trouble in reach
the other bank. The engineer, whose
■a ? was Sewell, had gone off in his
B^.nekded, Hr'^nd trousers out of and his boots. and He was had
senses,
r ve 9 .pons of any sort. My only hope
■ him that he would become
Hi ding was
Ojiifce llausted before going far, and sit down.
across the stream, I held to the
1 i h for about a mile, and then turned
:|the left and kept on until I had de
i
j scnoed a quarter of a circle and come to
tiie river again. I then went back to
the starting point and bore to the right,
and it was while on my way to the river
that four Indians suddenly rose up from
the grass at my feet and seized me. I
can’t say that I was off my guard, but
It did seem a bit queer to me as I thought
it over afterward that I should have let
' the skunks get such an advantage of me.
! * could see fairly well for twenty feet
Dr more around me, but the fellows
hugged the earth so closely, and I hap
pened to walk so straight into the trap,
that I was done for before I knew what
; was going on. Not a yell was uttered—
not a word spoken. Two of them tripped
j me-up, and the other piled on to me and
disarmed me, and in less than a minute
oay arms were jerked behind me and
made fast, and away we went to the
northwest on a trot. This was main
tained for about a mile, when we came
upon a party of fifty mounted redskins,
and in the midst of them I found Sewell.
He was prostrate with exhaustion and
tear, and when I spoke to him. which
act the Indians seemed rather to encour
age, he began crying and sobbing like a
child. I was lifted up behind a warrior
ail 1 off he went at a gallop, riding to
the west and keeping close to the river
until we had made at least fifteen miles.
Then we came upon an Indian village as
it was growing daylight.
My feelings during that ride were any¬
thing but agreeable, I can assure you.
The fact that I was not killed at the mo¬
ment of my capture had a significance
which I well understood. I was just as
certain to go to the stake for torture as I
remained a prisoner, and I did a heap of
thinking in hopes to get a plan for escape.
Mounted behind an Indian, my arms
tied so tightly that I was a constant suf¬
ferer, and obliged to keep my balance by
the use of my legs alone, there was no
earthly show for me to carry out any
scheme. Sewell was mounted on the
horse just ahead of me, and his conduct
went far to distress and unnerve me. He
kepi up u constant lamentation, and was
con tinually beseeching me not to let the
Indians do him harm. Drink had lost its
effect on him, and to come out of his
spell and find himself in the hands of the
relentless redskins had taken ail the pluck
out of him. He was doing the very
worst thing he could have done, for I
heard the Indians gloating over the pros¬
pect when lie should come to the stake.
There was considerable hurrah when we
rode into the village, and had I not been
able to understand a word of the dialect,
the looks and actions of the Indians
would have been sufficient to tell me
what fan* they intended to mete out ta
ns. Sewell was placed in one lodge and
I in another, and the war party were
soon engaged with breakfast. It was not
yet fully daylight when I was pulled off
the horse, and therefore I had not yet
been recognized. I was pretty generally
known to all the tribes, and they liad
named me “The Long Death. ’ ’ I got
the name by killing some of them with a
rille, which knocked them over when
they supposed themselves far beyond
range. My only hope was that no one in
the crowd "would lie able to identify me,
as r had lately had my hair cut close ana
my whiskers entirely "removed, but day
light had only come when three surprise, warriors
talked in on me, gave a start of
and one of them called at the top of his
vo j c ..
•It is the Long Death! We have got
him at last. Here is the wliite hunter
who has killed so many of our people.”
The cat was out of the thA-P bag, as the old
Ravine- and I stood d^med and faced
taem and knew that I was to
the the most most horrible horrible tortures tortu.es thev they could could in- in
rp,* Tliey dta not keep me tong mwmtmg.
The know ledge of my identity whetted
their sat age appetite*, and while the
warriors who raptured '“ were eating
w^f^LI^ valley -1^ ZZ
bit of on the Wt bank of Smoky
Hill Fork, and two young trees were cu*
down, trimmed to a proper length, and
then driven into the ground in the center
of the village. The one intended for me
was almost in front of my tepee, and
and I stood at the entrance and saw the
the young man drive it into the earth,
More than that, I sung out to them in a
steady voice, in their own dialect:
“A* stake like that to hold the Long
Death! You shall see how lie will tear it
up!”
My words were received with shouts of
satisfaction. No people on earth respect
courage in a man as much as the Indians,
They are no less cruel to a game man,
but his gameness will shorten his torture,
Feeling that my time had come, and
hoping to provoke some of them to shoot
or tomahawk me, I called out the names
of half a dozen of the tribe whom I had
sent to the happy hunting grounds. Some
of the young men fairly raved to get at
me, but the order of the chief was to wait.
I boasted that I could outshoot, outride
and outrun their best men, and offered
to fight any six of them, if they would
turn me loose, but all this talk only gave
them the more satisfaction in thinking of |
the torture in store for me. On the same
principle that people eat their pie last,
the Indians led Sewell out first. His con¬
dition was such that but little fun could
bo anticipated from his torture. He wa* ;
a large, fine looking man, but the result
of his spree and of his capture was to
break him down. He had no more courage
than a child, and it was pitiful to see him
weap and hear his lamentations. I beg
ged of the Indians to let him go, stating
that he was a civilian who had never in
jured them, and was so broken down
that he could not lire long, and hut for ;
the hotheaded young men in the tribe I i
should have got him off. They urged i
that he was assisting to build the railroad !
which was driving the game and the !
Indian out of the country, and that the j
white men never spared a warrior because !
he was ill. Such talk as tins settled it,
and the engineer was led out, stripped of
his clothing, and tied securely to the stake.
Had I refused to look on it would have
been taken as an act of cowardice on my
part. Realizing tliis, I stepped outsit!* j
the lodge and stood within ten feet of the •
stake. Sew till wept and begged while
being made fast, but when they stepped
of back he suddenly grew calm and asked j
me; *
“Taylor, what doe* this all mean? What
ire they going to do with me?”
“They are gomg to torture yon, Mr.
Sewell.”
“Are you a prisoner, too?”
“Yes, and they will torture me after
finishing you. ’ ’
1800 ““-Vi at the 0 ' 11 camp, but th “ V, r on is t they take l ^ that
md release u*^
I replied that if we were worth a million
d , ?* lara a P>f® "® could n <*: purchase our
ris ¥ d um . under to f aU tbe “P cu ' c ;! m ta 1 6tan °°° “ s ra - S® ^
* ek 10 d,e .. **• a ““*• ** of
weakness , on his part would excite con
£”1* and
beater way was to defy than to do thatr
wor f I believe he tried his best to brace
“ft but h ? nerves were dreadfully shat
* red - a" 11 after three foor
b^an crymg . again This
® ffect * Pjeihcted. HaU a hundred boya
were sent off to cut switches,. and when
^ «tumea they- were told to go ahead
and apply them to the engineer. Th*
idea but '‘,T“ was to whip S* tutUre some courage ^^f hitohinn ?L j
^ blow “ th ®. JAL* !
woman, and, 1 his feet not havmg yet been
Ued ’ he danced about like a puppet. I *
® allod *> bim klck h “ tormentors.
but he paid no lieed to my voice, and
^ & time stQod Btock 6tiU rad Iet t h e
bovs whip J him until blood wa* drawn in
a ^. ore places . AU this time he cried
a f our c „ g Te ye at» old, and I
], ear( l of the old warriors say that
was th e moe t cowardly white man
they had ever met. He may have lacked
-<***'*'■ tat 1 a,wftyB ****** hi *
duct to have been the result of his sliar
tered mental and physical condition,
After the boys had switched him fo
ten minutes thoy were called off, anti j
couple of warrior* advanced with thei
muzsle loading rifle* and l»egan to fir
charges of powder into the poor fellow'
flesh. Does it hurt? Well, sir. hell can'
be any worse. I’ve had a dozen charge
firod into me and I never felt any paii
to equal it. I’ll take two bullets m prof
erenoe to on* charge of powder even
timo. The first oharge set him to danc
mg an( l screaming, and at the third o?
fourth ho kicked on* of the w arrior
.over and became so savage that they hat
to fully land him to the stake. Tlun
tired thirty-four charges in all, and b;
the time they had finished you could not
have told that Sowell was a white man
His agony was something awful, and he
writhed about with such strength t hn.
the stake had twice to be driven deeper
H% shrieks and screams, as I afterward
ki ew, wero heard a distance of more than
two mike, and yet tins was only the lx*
ginning of wliat they had in store for
him.
Tin* next move was to apply the burn
ing sticks. Some green sticks had licet
put upon the fir© vz. pur{>ose, and thre«
or four warrior* apphed the burning end
to ruriom portion* of the engineer’s body,
The pain fairly drove him crazy, and ti
a short timo‘he fainted. Water wa
brought from the stream and dashed ore
him, and during this interval many war
riors crowded around me to see how
was bearing up.
“Dogs! Do yon think you can mak
the Lung Death cry like that?” I shoutc
at them. “Here, pull up my trouser
and see where the cowardly Sioux sho
powder into my legs. Pull off my boot
and find where the Cheyennes applio
the fire sticks. Did I weep like a woman
(>o M k them. And when you ask that
inquire who killed the Black Eagle, Re«
Horse, Big Mountain, (.real Buffalo, an*
Black Feather. They will tell you, th<
Long Death, I I
But for th© pretence of four or fivt
chief* 1 should have been done for ta
the spot, so excited were the young men
By this time Sewell had regained hi
gens**, and wa* sobbing anti wail in
again, and they went hock to their sport
A warrior approached him with a shar]
knife and slashed him in fifty differen
places, each cut being deep enough t<
be painful, but none of them very seri
ous. The gush of blood soon turned th*
man into a horrible looking object, ant
several time* he would have fainted lun
they not had water at hand to throv
over him. He had screamed so loud an*
long that his voice was now entirely
K mie - wul the 0001,1 ,lt '‘
waaagrooa. He had long seemed 1 un
conscious of ray presence, and 1 wa
glad of this. I do not think lie was n
his full senses after the burning. Af
the wamnr had cut and slashed with he
>‘mi«ta bark to P la «* to anoth
er - Tins second one meant to do fine,
work He meant, as a first move, t<
c “* th « victim» tonp* °°t. but as lie
reached for it with hi* left hand Sewe
snapped at him like a dog, got the blacl
hand firmly between lus jaws, and tlicr
there was a grand uproar. Everybody
enjoyed the fix the Indian was in. am
whenever h® motioned as if ho meant U
use h e knife they shouted to him to gm
the victim fair play. Sewell held to lun
for fullv five minute*, lacerating the bant:
like, bulldog and then three or four
* el “ d “ m made 'l™ ,e ‘ <??
^ie bitten wamor relinquished the knife
to another, and during the next quarter
of an hour Sewell suffered the loss of hi
n(m , ears, fingers and lips. He shrieke.
out In agony when his nose was sliced
off , but a ft« that he never even groaned,
and I consoled myself with the hope that
ta was dead. The Imbans finally ta
cam* satisfied that they could get no
more “fun” out of him, and ta was
scalped, UghtS and the faggot* at his feet were
to consumedta body,
«“®- Thw wa® a grand
