St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1891-08-29
"CAMP HORROR"
The Story Of One Wild Night Among
the Indians.

the Indians.
You will wonder, of course, why a
soldiers camp should have received
such name, but it is on the military
records, and no man will ever attempt
to explain it to you without grieving
over the recollections aroused thereby.
1t was out in the Indian country,
on the Kansas frontier when red men
were making such fight against the
troops sent out after the close of rebel
lion. They had swooped down on the
Smoky Hill stage route and scalped
and slaughtered right and left, and
our command had been hurried for
ward to protect such settlers as might
have escaped and to open the route
again. Day after day the red men
severed on our fanks, and night after
sight they crept upon us like serpents
and sent their silent arrows into camp
to find living targets.
One night, when the day had been
full OF excitement, and when it seemed
as it the Sioux had determined to re-
treat no further, the sentinels were
warned to extra vigilance. We knew
that peril menaced us, and we who
stood sentry after midnight peered
into the darkness with bated breath,
and were ready to fire at the first sus-
picious sound. At O'Clock thought
heard slight footstep on the grass.
1t was dark night, with now and
then gust of wind sweeping up with
lonesome sound, and l could not be
sure l heard Alright.
| waited, with finger on the trigger,
ready to fire if / heard the footstep
again, but it did not come to me.
Scarcely ten minutes had passed, when
the sentinel on my right, who was only
thirty feet away, fired into the dark
ness. The report of his carbine had
not died away when loud. wild scream
rang out upon the night, and every
man who heard it knew that it was
uttered by woman.
1t is good many years back to that
night, but remember every incident
as well as if only a week had passed.
Now and then have dreamed of II,
and that dream has aroused me ind
taken all Of my nerve. As soon as we
could investigate we found an amazing
thing-a woman lying dead on the
grass, with a 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 look
ed, but it was hard to believe we saw
Alright. 1t was settlers wife, as was
afterward known, who had escaped
massacre more than forty miles away.
She had wandered around for FIVE.
days, suffering with hunger and thirst,
and had no doubt become crazed with
anxiety and exhaustion,
There was none butsold veterans in
that camp, but there were tears ii all
eyes when that dead body was brought
into scamp, and when the wakened
baby cried with fright and hunger
and held out its little hands tq the
very trooper who had fired upok the
mother. No one could blame hil;, i'm
the least, but he blamed himself.
When he realized what he had done
he turned away from us without a
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 pre-
prepared, when there came another
shot and another alarm. The trooper
had gone just without the lines of the
camp aud fired a bullet into his own
heart. Remorse had driven him to it.
Somewhere in the West that boy
baby, now grown to manhood, still
lives, but the two graves we dug next
morning were years ago levelled and
obliterated fspm all sight but that of
God. AT ths last great day he will
awaken the dust of their dead.
NJ. QUAD.