The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-09-16
PASSING OF THE SCOUT.
PILOTS OF THE PLAINS FIND THEIR
OCCUPATION GONE.
Famous In Frontier ROmances some
of the 0ld-Time scouts-Age of IA

FROM the Omaha World Herald.
About the most pitifuny cherries mon
in the West nowadays are those who have
given the greater part of their lives to
scouting for the army and occasionally for
a cattle company or a band of miners,
who have endured a generation of SAVAGE
hardships and have braved all the dangers
of the plains, and now, grizzled and gray,
realize that their occupation is gone for
ever There are scores of the old fellows
in the territories. Several hundreds of the
younger scouts have become Vaqueros,
sheep herders, express messengers and
guards, cattle men, railroad men, miners
and prospectors. Electricity and railroads
principally have made scouting obsolete.
and since the Apaches In the Southwest
and the Sioux in the Northwest have been
beaten into peaceful relations with the
white settlers there has been no demand
Tor the services of the ld-time scout In
every town of any size in this region one
may see some of the veteran scouts-poor
in purse, tattered in person-loahnR about
the saloons telling visitors from the East
of the glores of the frontier before civil-
cation and railroad spoiled 1t ALL ana
halt-heartedly building hopes of the day
when something Unexpectedly may trans
pire and scouting may be called into de
mand again.
The earlier scouts. like Kit Carson and
jim Bridger, were originally trappers
and hunters. born and reared in Missouri
Tennessee and Kentucky, who had a fond
ness for adventure. They had pushed their
way across the border of civilization of
those days and had gone upon the plans
OF Kansas, Nebraska and Texas for big
game and excitement. The Mexican war
of 1917 and the movement of troops through
Texas and along the Rio Grande brought
scouting into the army service. When che
era of OK teams and excited gold seekers
headed toward California began in 1919
there was a great demand for scouts at
very profitable wages Hundreds of
young mon with smattering of plains
life, an expertness in firearms, and a lit
tie knowledge of Indian ways became pro
fessional scouts No emigration train
would leave st. Joseph Mo- or Leaven-
worth, Kan, on its journey of four or five
months TO the Pacific ocean without an
accompanying scout or guide for at least
a part of the way AS the chain or army
garrisons was extended out upon the plans
the war department employed more and
more scouts for the troops and scouting
became sort of science of The plains in
which there was competition in experience.
During the Apache and Sioux wars In 1877,
1878 and 1879 the government had about
100 scouts on the army pay-rolls Then
the Indians. who had adopted white mems
ways, became scouts, and the pursuit OF
the white men waned fast.
Many Qualities Required.
The requisite of a good scout was. first
OF all, an iron constitution. He expected
to remain in the saddle days and nights
in succession, to sleep for weeks at time
wherever night overlook him His sole
concern, so far as physical discomfort was
concerned, was for his horse or broncho
PrivationS that would quickly break down
men used to combining employment and in
door life were nothing to scouts They
have gone for weeks without cooked food
because they were secretly trailing In an
Indian country and dared not make fire
Hunger and thirst were common priva-
tons. They have slept on bleak and bar
rem spots where bitter winds blew and dust
and sand filled the air, with their horses
picketed near, without even a protecting
blanket over them, only to get up at dawn
and pursue the ride of sixty or seventy
miles farther. 1t is wonderful that these
plainsmen could endure this life longer
than a few years.
Courage is another requisite for a good
scout. Some of this courage may be border
bravado but there have been such con-
slant opportunities TO reveal the mettle of
a scout that none could conceal his true
self very long. There have been published
countless highly romantic stories of the
bravery of scouts in prairie fires, IN STAN
pedes Of buffalo, I'm facing a shower of bull
let's and a storm of feathered arrows, and
the majority of these romances are found
ed on fact One may hear about any garri-
son on the Western frontier to-day vera
cious stories of deeds of bravery by long
haired, untutoTed scouts that rival the
widest fiction.
The scout must also have a quick COM
tails of a country. Scouts Winche and
Flanagan, who led a troop of cavalry into
an Apache ambush along the Dragon
mountains in Southern Arizona in 1879
and who instantly ordered the soldiers to
whrl about and seek safety behind the
lava powders, while they, the two scouts
dashed into the open and received the
deadly charge intended for the troops.
showed as much courage and quickness of
comprehension as legendary heroes ever
did. Out on the barren. sun-baked and
wind-swept plains the scout must know
where water is to be mad, even though he
might not have been that way In several
years Gen. Custer said that the four
scouts who led his troops in the Indian
campaigns of the later sixties could smell
water forty miles away, even when the
sun was witheringly hot and the soldiers
and horses were almost overcome.
The art of scouting is learned only by
experience ana years Oh ObseTNatloH. IHere
are on text books to be studied. vast
number of minute facts In nature-things
that experienced naturalists would not OBJ
serve-are like an open volume TO veteran
scouts. The twist of turned leaf along
a trail will be noted as showing which way
the last persons i'm that locality went and
the height and location of the turned leaf
show whether the person was afoot or on
horseback.
Along Trail.
The turned pebbles denote by their color
how long they have been stirred from their
beds of earth, and consequently how long
since some one went that way. scout