The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1877-09-27
A Lone Sentinel.


AS we wandered west along Fourth
Street yesterday, on our return from the
dog-show, we met an old friend in blue
uniform, who asked concerning the pros
pective success of the exhibition, the
character of the attendance and the mer-
its of the dogs. Conversation naturally
turned upon dogs in general, and subse-
quently upon mastitf dogs in particular.
The man in blue listened in kind of
dreamy way to our criticisms, and sud-
denly commenced slowly and thought
fully to narrate the following incident:
II think it was in 80 or 81 when was
crossing the plains to reach the gold
fields. There were only three of US, and
we were all the time on the lookout for
Indians. l believe the Mormons had
only settled at Salt Lake few years
previous; and to cross the plains in those
DAYS was a risky undertaking. We rode
all day, and at night one always stood
guard.
"There was an awful silence on those
plains; and sometimes the silence weighed
down upon us so strangely that we would
ride on for hours without speaking; and
you never heard the barking of a coyote.
'The air was rare and transparent, and
the expanse about US level as vast sea,
with occasional billowy heaves which
one could see at distance of twenty
miles. 1t was nearly always the same !;
except where the buffalo skulls were very
thickly strewn, or where those queer In
dian graves raised on poles stood out
against the horizon, like odd black in
sects with very long legs.
$50 we came at last to the head of the
Sweetwater-th nearly one thousand
miles from any settlement; and the skulls
lay very thick there-thick as the bOuld-
ers in torrent-bed sometimes; and there
were little mounds all over the plain; and
these mounds were all graves.
each grave had a great buffalo or elk
skull-all white, and bleached, and
CHASTITY -looking-at one end of it. l re-
member some of the elk skulls must have
measured five feet between the tips of the
horns; and the bone was white and dry as
salt. And on every skull that was placed
on mound there had been written in pen
Gil or scratched in with knife the name
of the dead man below, such as, William
Rawlins, died 9Th of May; 81 years; Pike
County, Missouri
"They were nearly an from Pike
County, Mo-; and we got tired of reading
so many of them. There were other
skulls lying along the road here and there
with little sentences written on them in
pencil stating that So-andSo and So-and-
So had passed by on such day. We used
to pick up clean skull ourselves, once
in awhile, and write something of this
kind on it, so that we might leave a sort
of clew as to what had become of us, if
we should get killed.
"Well, as we were stumbling over the
graves and reading the inscriptions on
the skulls, I suddenly saw great dog
rise from mound at some distance, and
slowly retreat to another mound still far
Their off, where he turned and stared at US.
He was one Of those huge English mas
tiffs, and must have belonged to one OF
the dead men. You could see through
him. no starving wolf could have been
gaunter, and his great protruding eyes
had the widest look you ever saw. He
seemed to have lost the eyes and flesh to-
gether, and looked like the very phantom
of dog. We called and whistled to him,
but he never barked-Only stared at US
with the same wild look. Then we went
to the grave he had been lying on, and it
was nameless-there was no skull on it,
nothing to mark it as grave except the
long coffin shape of the mound.
1--WE tried for ever so long to coax the
dog even to come and eat something; but
he would not come near us, and would
run off in weak, shy way if we tried to
approach him. God knows how long he had
been there We remained whole after
noon, just to dig little hole for water
for the dog; you could strike water there
at four or five feet, right among the
graves. Then We left some crackers and
dry food for him, and rode away west.
''As we went turned and saw him re-
turn to the grave and lie down on it at
full length, as though trying to guard it.
And watched him and watched him,
until at last when turned in my saddle
l could see nothing except the white
skulls all behind me, and few weird
Indian graves on the edge of the horizon
where the night was creeping up."-Cin-
cinndti Commercial.
PRESIDENT HAYES is reported to have
said, the other day, that Indians could
not be introduced in the army, in any
extended way, with efficiency. He added: