Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-10-03

A COLORADO CHARAcTER.-Each lady had
her cavalier, and as we assembled Abel Critten-
den told me some of his adventures among the
Indians; and as he himself is essentially pro-
duct of Colorado in Indian and trader times
having come here when child, shall give
little sketch of the man and what he told me-
First of ali, here is the man himself as OBJ
served him-youug, handsome, tender-hearted,
gallant, perfect slave to women and children
amusing a sick child by the hour, or preparing
our camp beds with the dizziness and perfection
of woman; singing love songs to his guitar:
STOPPING from his horse to pick up a pin or
flower from the ground without relaxing his
gallop; able to tell every man or beast that had
passed over our dry, hard trail for days; brave,
CHEEKY, affectionate. This is one side of his
character Rough, cunning as fox, usparing
as a savage; that is the other, The strange
mixture can be explained in one word-Indiansl
This man, who loves even books after fashion,
and is alive to every sentiment of the refined
and civilized kind, as it affects white people,
could tell, without blush or shudder, of cutting
down Indian women and children at night as
they were sleeping in their tents, and carrying
OIL their scaps as trophy.
''But what do you mean2 How could your"
said /.
'Pll tell you how | could" said he. "When
was nineteen years old found my friend and
comrade, Joe Crandall, boy whom had eaten
with and starved with, hunted with and slept
with on the plains, cruelty murdered and half
burnt at the stake, where those iends had
tied him, and where they had deliberately and
slowly tortured him till he died." And Crit
tenden touched his bowie-knife with look ont
OF his usually merry blue eyes which would do
more to explain "Indian affairs to New
Yorker than all the state papers in Washing
ton.
"But still, that was done by men-what ex-
cnse does that offer for slaughtering women and
chldrcnW
owe never did that except at Sand Creek"
said he, and then the provocation was great
For one thing, among many of the same kind,
the Cheyennes had just come down in the night
on peaceful and hard working family named
llungate, of Rolling Creek, and had murdered
and cut up the father, mother and FIVE children,
though they did not attempt to fight. Their
mutilated bodies were exposed in the streets of
Denver, and our regiment, with the colonel at
its head, vowed that as they treated our women
and children, so would we treat theirs; and we
stole away secretly aud never stopped till we
had six hundred Cheyenne and Arapahoe scalps
in our possession. Why should we spare their
wives and babies when they never spared ours
Let them see how they like it,"
but surely il was not becoming in civilized
men, after they had punished an enemy TO
initiate their barbarous customs in scalping
themW
Eyes, it was that worries them worse than
killing. Indians think that they can't 20 to
the happy hunting grounds without their
scalpsj ana lney VIII Sacflnce nall u dozen Of
their common men to save one dead chiefs
scalp"
"rhen do you mean deliberately to Justify the
Sand Creek afairp
"Justilyl it was the hest and most effective
thing ever done to stop the numbering of I'M
armed and delenceless settlers, and every white
man, woman and Child in the territory is the
safer for il to.dayP
repeat this conversation not for the sake of
4 sensation, but because do not believe It pos
sible for eastern people to understand the feel.
ing Of old settlers here toward the hostile tribes