The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-09-13
CAMP HORROR"
The Story Of One Wild Night Among the
Indians

The Story of One Wild Night Among the
| Indians.
on will wonder, of course. WHY a SOL
dler's camp should have received such q
name, but it is on the military records and
no man will ever attempt to explain it To
you without grieving over the recollec
lions aroused thereby.
1t was in the Indian country on the Kan
sas frontier, when the red men were max
Ing such fight against the troops sent ont
after the close OF the rebellion. They had
sWooped down on the Smoky Hill stage
ronte and scalped and slaughtered right
and lett, and our command had been hur-
RED forward to protect such settlers as
might have escaped and to open the route
again. Day after day the red men lowered
on Our hanks, and night after night they
! crept upon US like serpents aud sent their
silent arrows into the camp to find living
! targets.
one night, when the day had been full of
excitement, and when it seemed as if the
Sioux mad determined to retreat no further
the sentlnels were warned to extra yigi.
lance. We knew that peril menaced rs.
and we who stood sentry after midnight
peered into the darkness with bated breath
ana were ready to fire at the first suspi-
clous sound. AT l o'clock l thought |
heard light footstep on the grass. Il was
DARK night, with now and then a gust of
WIND sweeping up with lonesome sound,
and could not be sure l heard Alright.
waited, with finger on the trigger.
ready to fire if heard the footstep again
out IL ala not come to me. Scarcely ten
minutes had passed when the sentinel on
my right, who was only thirty feet away,
nred into the darkness. The report of his
carblne had not died away when a loud,
Wild scream rang out upon the night and
every man who heard it knew that il was
uttered by a woman.
IL is good many years back to that
night, but | remember every incident as
well as if only week had passed. Now
and then L have dreamed of it, and that
scream has aroused me and taken all INV
nerve. AS soon as we could investigate we
found an amazing thing-a woman living
dead on the grass with year-old baby in
her arms! The sentinel had shot her dead
In her tracks, but the baby was still asleep.
with one OF her arms hugging it to her
breast. We looked and looked, and it was
hard to oelleve we saw Alright 1t was
settlers wife, as was afterwards known
VINO VINO mao escaped a massacre more than
forty miles away. She had wandered
around for i've days, suffering with hun
ger and thirst and had no doubt become
crazed with anxiety and exhaustion
There was none but old veterans in that
camp, but there were tears in all eyes when
that poor dead body was brought into
camp, and when the Weakened baby cried
with fright and hunger and held out it's lit
tie hands to the very trooper who had fired
upon the mother. No one could blame him
in the least, but he blamed himself. When
he realized what he had done he turned
away from US without word and walked
away as men walk in their sleep. We had
washed the mothers life blood off the
baby's hands, and the colonel himself was
feeding it with the Cruel hastily prepared
when there came another shot and another
alarm. The trooper had gone just without
the lines OF the camp and fired bullet into
his own heart. Remorse had driven him tn
IL.
Somewhere in the west that bow babv
now grown to manhood, still lives. but the
two graves we dug next morning were
years ago levele1 and obliterated from ali
sight but that of God. At the last great
day he will awaken the dust of their dead
M. QUAD.