Tales of the Trail; Short Stories of Western Life

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1898. Excerpt: ... A RACE FOR LIFE. An Incident Of The Indian War Of 1864. N 1864 the magnificent valley of the Smoky Hill, with its rich share of wooded streams and fertile uplands, and the still more Elysian expanse watered by the great Arkansas--that embryo granary of two continents -- were simply known as the region through which passed twin inter-oceanic trails, the Oregon and the Santa Fe, both now mere memories. The commerce of the Great Plains over that broad path through the wilderness, the Santa Fe Trail, was at its height, and immense trains rolled day after day toward the blue hills which guard the portals of New Mexico. Oxen, mules, and sometimes horses, tugged wearily week after week through the monotony of their long journey, their precious freight ever tempting KICKING BIRD. the wily nomads to plunder, dissimulation, and murder. Pawnee Rock, Walnut, Coon, Ash and Cow creeks were mute witnesses of a score or more battles that reddened the blossoming prairie in springtime, and the slopes of the Pawnee, Heath's Branch and Buckner's were resonant with the yell of the Kiowa and Cheyenne, who under the pale moonlight held their hideous saturnalia of butchery. To protect the trains on their weary route through the desert--as the whole of this region was then termed, and confidently believed by the world to be -- troops were stationed, a mere handful, relatively, at intervals on the great trail, to escort the freighters and the United States mail over the most exposed and dangerous portions of the route. The incident which is the subject of this sketch is as thrilling, perhaps, in its details, and as marvelous in its results, as any that have come down to us in the history of those memorable times. It deals with plain facts, and men who are now living--one of whom, the principal actor i...