Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-08-12
Well-Known Scouts Who Now Find
Their Occupation Gone.
EARLY PILOTS OF PLAIN AND FOREST
Their Bold Achievements Will Live
Forever in History.
SOME FAMOUS EXPLOITS
From the Omaha World Herald.

From the Omaha World Herald
About the most pitifully cherries men 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 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 hundred 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 beat
en- into peaceful relations with the white
settlers there has been no demand for the
services of the old-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--loafing about the
saloons telling visitors from the east of the
glories of the frontier before civilization
and railroads spoiled it all and half-heart-
eddy building hopes of the day when some
thing Unexpectedly may transpire and
scouting may be called into demand again.
Early Scouts Fared Well.
The earlier scouts, like Kit Carson and
Jim" Bridger, were originally trappers and
hunters, born and reared in Missouri, Ten
nessee and Kentucky. who had a fondness
for adventure. They had pushed their way
across the border of civilization of those
days, and had gone upon the plains of
Kansas, Nebraska and Texas for big game
and excitement The Mexican war of 1S47
and the movement OF troops through
NJ - ~ ,-rl~t
scouting into the army service. When the
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
Men with a smattering of plains life, an
experiences in firearms and a little knowl-
e6ge OF Indian ways became professional
scouts. No emigration train would leave
st. Joseph, Mo, or Leavenworth, Kan,
On its journey of four or five months to
the Pacific ocean without an accompanying
scout or guide for al least part of the
way. AS the chain of army garrisons was
extended out upon the plains the War De-
partment 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, 1873 and
1879 the government had about 200 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
The Ideal Scout.
The requisite OF a good scout was first of
all, an iron constitution. He expected to re-
main in the saddle days and nights in sue
cession, to sleep for weeks at a time wher-
ever night overlook him. His sole concern,
so far as physical discomfort was concern
ed, was for his horse or broncho. Prva-
tons that would quickly break down men
used to combining employment and indoor
life were nothing to scouts. They have
gone for weeks without cooked food be-
cause they We're secretly trailing in an In
dian country and dared not make fire.
Hunger and thirst were common priyations.
They have slept on bleak and barren 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 pur-
sue the ride sixty or seventy miles further.
1t is wonderful that these piainsmen could
endure this life longer than few years.
Courage is another requisite for a good
scout. Some of this courage may be border
bravado, but there have been such constant
opportunities to reveal the mettle of scout
that none could conceal his true self very
long. There have been published countless
highly romantic stories of the bra 5ery of
scouts in prairie fires. in stampedes Of buff
falo, in facing a shower of bullets and
storm of feathered arrows, and the MAORI
ty of these romances are founded on fLJt
One may hear about any garrison on the
western frontier today veracious stories of
deeds of bravery by long haired, untutored
scouts that rival the widest fiction.
Some Are Heroes.
The scout must also have a quick COM
prehenson and a good memory for details
of a country. Scouts Winchel and Flani-
gan, who led a troop of cavalry into an
Apache ambush among the Dragon noun
tains in southern Arizona in 1879 and who
instantly ordered the soldiers to Whirl
about and seek safety behind the lava bowl
ders, while they 1.-THE two scouts dashed
into the open and received the deadly
charge intended for the troops, showed as
much courage and quicliness of comprehen-
sion as legendary heroes ever did. Out on
the barren. sun-baked and wind-swept
plains the scout must know where water
is to be had, even though he might not
have been that way in several years. Gen
eral Custer said that the four scouts who
led his troops in the Indian campaigns of
the later Cos could smell water forty miles
away, even when the sun was witheringly
hot and the soldiers and horses We're al
most overcome.
The art of scouting is learned only by ex-
perience and years of observation. There
are no textbooks to be studied. A vast
number of minute facts in nature-things
that experienced naturalists would not OBJ
serVe-are like open volume to veteran
scouts. The twist of a turned leaf along a
trail will be noted as showing which way
the last persons IN that locality went and
the height and location of the turned leaf
show whether the person afoot or on
horseback. 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. A
scout leading body of troops along a
trail may travel at a good jog and at the
same time observe signs-unobservabIe to
the following-that the enemy has passed
along that way, and also the number of
the enemy. Think of trailing band of In
dams among the Businesses of a mountain
range and telling from bent grass, turned
leaves, prints CT horses hoofs and the area
occupied at the camping spots the number
of persons there were in the band: whether
they were bucks or squaws. or mixed as to
sex; whether they We're fleeing from pur-
suers, or were going to a new hunting
ground!
Expert In Their Graft.
Some of the most expert Indian scouts
have even been astute enough to distin-
guish from the character of smoke that as
cends from camp fire ten and more miles
distant whether the campers were whites
or Indians. Gen. Miles used to have a
Pima scout in the campaign of 1880 against
Geronimo and Cochise who could pretty ac-
curately tell from gazing at the smoke
through glass whether the fire in a dis
tant camp had been kndled for a long or a
short time. The same scout once led a do