The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1880-01-29
On the Plains.

who are camped and barracked far out
on the plains, where an extra glass of
toddy is the extent of the Christmas
festivitiesp" The above question was
asked of an Alta reporter by Mr.. j.
Howard Paget, scout who has been
attached to General Miles command,
and who was an eyewitness to Miles
fight with the Nez Perces on Sept.
80 and Oct. 1, 2, s and 4, 1877. Mr..
Paget, or Howard" the name by
which he is known on the plains, is q
fine-looking, we'll built young man of
thirty or thereabout, whose hardened
sinews and bronze features bear wit
ness to the life of exposure he has fol-
lowed for the past seven years. He is
native of Iowa, and has been in Cali
fornia nineteen years. His first visit to
the prairies was in 1873, when he took
a st. Louis party to the Black Hills; in
1875 he was driven out of the Hills by
General Crook, since which time he has
been . Government scout.
Mr.. Paget is quiet, unassuming gem
tleman, who, although covered with
honorable scars and wounds gained in
the service of his country, is somewhat
reticent of talking of his life on the
plains, and it required some little press
ing to induce him to converse in such
manner that the following story might
be told. He differs also from several
of the noted scouts in that he wears his
hair short, and not in the poetical-
ly artistic style of flowing locks droop-
ing over the shoulders.
"Well, yes," said Paget. 81 think I
know thing or two about roughing it,
and can Just tell you scouts daily
life is not the pleasant thing you would
take it to be from the yellow-covered,
ten-cent novels. At five minutes no.
tice we frequently undertake journey
of a hundred miles. on horseback, dur
ing which we have to ride from fifty to
seventy-five miles q day. and don't see
q human face, a fence or a house for
weeks. When we are sent with dis
patches, we don't bother much about
luggage; usually it consists of what q
fellow has on, blanket for a saddle
cloth buckskin pants, a woolen shirt,
and q pair of Government boots. Weap-
onsP Well, yes, guess we take them
along, too; brace of good revolvers, q
needle-gun, and an Arkansas tOothpick,
or pocket-knife with a seven-inch blade,
is my usual outfit in that direction. OF
course, never travel without my COM
pass. as that is frequently my only
guide. Rationsp Well, yes, take some
of them, of~course, though not enough
to bother my mount; some hard-tack,
sowbelly, or salt pork, and black coffee
is the extent of my larder. In case the
grub runs out, don't hesitate to kill
my animal for sustenance. For water
and fuel we usually trust to luck, which
don't always pan out well. have more
no nnoo viAAan nno hnpdroA ond 6ftu
miles without seeing q creek of running
water, or finding stick as big as q
match. Sometimes we are sent out
with dispatches for q command a week
ahead OF us. Do we find them? Yes,
generally, but we have to trail the COM
mand. Sometimes it Is easy enough;
other times it isn't easy at all. In or
dinary weather can generally tell, by
trailing within two hours how long it is
since they passed, or how old the tracks
are. Well, yes, l guess we are pretty
well paid for our services, as a general
thing. Sometimes the service is par
ticularly dangerous one, and the COM
manding officer offers q reward for q
volunteer to carry the dispatches, but
even the reward don't always secure a
volunteer.
Right after the Custer massacre q re-
ward of $1,000 was offered to anyone
who who would carry sealed letters to
the nearest command and bring an
swers; three soldiers volunteered and
got through safely, but they could not
be induced to return with the answers.
IndiansP Well, yes, think I have
seen few of them during the past six
years; have seen them and felt them
closer than 1 ever want to again.
Treaties don't amount to anything; the
Indians are nasty and treacherous,
and you just mark my words, they kill
white man whenever they get q
chance. It's in their nature, and they
can't help it. The Piutes in and around
Nevada and Utah are quiet and peace
able enough, but that's because they are
not strong enough to be fighting. Well,
don't want to blow my own horn, but
l should remark have had few mar
now escapes. If you think you would
like to hear a couple of them, 1 will
just as leave tell them as not. No,
thank you, don't drink; in our busi-
ness a man must keep stout heart, q
steady eye, and q cool head, and liquor
won't help to give him any of them.
"In June, 1877, think it was about
the 21st, / started to take a train of
prospectors from Deadwood to the Big
Horn country. In the party were sew
eral tender-feet-pretty green ones. A
man named John Snyder, of Cheyenne,
and myself thought we would scare
them little; so we sneaked of about
two miles from camp and lit fire.
Coming back into camp, we woke the
boys up with the remark, There's In
dians around; see the fire;' and to carry
out the joke. we put them to work dig
ging rifle-pits. There's many q true
word spoken in jest, you know, and so
it was in our case. At dawn in the
neighborhood of our fire, which had,
doubtless, been seen by them, were
about eighty Indians, in war paint, and
excellently mounted. think they were
wouldn't attack US till daylight, because
Indians are superstitious of the dead
and killing at nighttime, so we got
ready to fight, and awaited movements
on their part. You bet, we didn't have
long to wait. In about ten minutes
after daylight they were upon us, and
shooting commenced in good ear
nest. In the first round three of our
men, tender-feet, got killed; they seemed
to be crazed with excitement and COM
pletely lost their wits; they jumped out
of the rife-pits and ran toward the In
dians; they had not got twenty feet
from us when they were 'goners.' The
scrimmage lasted nearly all day, four
more of our party being killed in the
afternoon. Toward evening the In
dians fell back out of sight, and. think
ing it safer for us to be on the move,
we abandoned lots of good grub, and,
under cover of the darkness, made
tracks for the Big Horn country. l