The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-03-17
A Story Of the Frontier.

fighters and miners-sat around camp
fire on the trail to Deadwood. Soft
flakes of snow sailed in eccentric course
through the night air, and finally settled
down into the sputtering fire or upon the
cold earth.
There were other men on the trail be.
fore and behind. Men rush wherever
the precious metal is discovered. There
were broken wagons, dead horses, and
human skeletons along every mile of the
trail, and tierce-eyed Indians looked out
from every ravine and down upon tray
elers from every hill.
The dozen gathered closer as darkness
shut down and the snowfakes came
faster, and by and by an old man with
grizzly locks and piercing eye said, as if
speaking to himself:
"Custer went in to kill. 1t was an
awful thing to do-to rush three hun
dred men down upon five thousand reds
but he did it, and meant to win. No
other man will ever take such chances"
And yet one was near by who meant
to take greater chances. So cat-like was
his step that he had almost entered camp
before the sentinels saw him. He was
giant in size, and, as he halted where the
light of the fire shone full in mis- face,
three or four men uttered EXPLANATIONS
of surprise and horror. There was blood
on the strangers face-blood on his
great rough hands-blood over his cloth
ing clear down to his boots. 1t was
terrible sight, and yet, as if something
further was needed, the stranger turned
his back to the men, and they saw that
an attempt had been made to scalp him.
Water-food? he whispered as he
looked from face to face.
Both were given him, and after drink
ing full quart of water he grasped a
loaf of bread and a hunk of meat, and
tore them with his teeth as wolf would
have done. By and by, when his hunger
had been somewhatappeased, he said:
"It happened off this way, nigh to
twenty miles. lost the trail somehow,
and the Injuns swooped down on me at
noon to-day. The old woman and five
children were in the wagon. There
were forty or fifty reds, and it wasn't
three minutes before the hull family was
dead-all but mel"
His eyes blazed with fury; he seemed to
grow in height, and, casting the remnants
of the food into the fire, he fercely
shouted:
"Think of the old woman having her
brains beaten out by the fiends! Think
of the children being hauled out'n
wagon and scalped and stabbed and their
threats cut from ear to ear! Come on
come with meW
He leaped over the fire and bounded
away into the darkness, but presently re-
turned and said IN a calmer voice:
81 fit, of course. 1t was which for
who, but they were fifty to one. l drove
'em from the corpses | dubbed 'em off
with my rifle, but they were too many
They shot and stabbed me; they run me
to the hills; they have hunted me all the
afternoon"
The giant trembled like a leaf, and
the fresh blood ran from his wounds and
trickled down in red paths over his neck
and cheeks and clothing. The leader of
the party tried to soothe him. promising
aid as soon as daylight came, but the
stranger waved his arms and cried out
"What can you do? The wolves are
feeding on my wife and children to-
night; their scalps are back in the hills
with the lndians Can you bring life
back to them? Give me gun and an
axp
No one moved for two or three sec
onds, being spell bound by his wild look
and words, and the stranger picked up
cavalry carbine and its box of cartridges,
seized the light AK used about the camp
fire, and in another minute was lost sight
of in the darkness, calling back, as his
step was lost to hearing: 1t is which
for Who'll"
Next day, about mid-afternoon, the
party came upon two dead Indian ponies,
lying between the trail and the foothills
to the right. A few yards further on
was great stain of blood on the two
inches of snow covering the grass. A
warrior had fallen here and been carried
off by his comrades. There was the trail
of white man on foot, heading for the
foothills, but moving slowly, and there
were plain traces that the man had
halted every few rods to use his weapons.
An along the trail were the hoof tracks
of ponies, and an old hunter shook his
head and said:
=" 1t is the man who left our camp last
night. Back thar is whar the reds first
sighted him, and he stood in his tracks
and killed two ponies and one Injun.
There was gang of forty or fifty reds,
and the white man moved to git among
the hills and have fair play. Jist look
thar"
Fifteen or twenty rods ahead were
three dead ponies, lying close together.
The band of redskins had made a charge
upon the lone man at this point, and he
had met them bravely. The snow told
everything. Standing In his tracks, and
not lifting a foot, except to wheel
around, he had whipped the whole gang
There were three dead ponies within a
hundred feet of the white mans position,
and again the snow was crimsoned with
two great patches of blood where the
warriors had fallen.
"Great God! but how he fit" whis-
pered the old hunter, as he saw how the
snow had been trampled down; "but
they wounded him here"
So they had. He bad retreated