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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