The times., 1899-08-21


Tribes Have Thrown the orave
and Daring Guides Out of Work.
About the most pitifully cheerless men
in the West nowadays are those who have
given the greater part of their lives 10
scouting for the army, and occasionally
for cattle company or a band of miners,
who nave endured generation of savage
hardships and have braved ali the dangers
of the plains, and now, grizzled and grey,
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, cattlemen, railroad men, miners
and prospeetors. 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
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 civili-
zation and railroads spoiled it ALL and
half -heartedly building hopes of the day
when something unexpected may transpire
and scouting may be called into demand
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 plains
or Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas for big
game and excitement The Mexican war
of 1847, and the movement of troops
through Texas and along the Rio Grande
brought scouting into the army service.
When the era of OK teams and excited
gold-seekers headed toward California be-
gan in 1S49, there was great demand for
scouts at very profitable wages. Hundreds
OF young men with a smattering of plains
life, an expertness in firearms and a little
knowledge of Indian ways became profess
ional 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 aceompa-
nying scout or guide for at least a part of
the way. AS The chain of army garrisons
was extended out upon the plains 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 Dur
ing the Apache and Sioux wars in 1877.
1878, and 1879, the Government had about
Loo scouts on the army payrolls Then
the Indians. who had adopted white mems
ways, became scouts, and the pursuit of
the white men waned fast
Tl,a 90.
of all, an iron constitution. He expected TO
remain in the saddle days and nights in
succession, to sleep for weeks at a time
wherever night overlook him. His sole
concern, SO far as physical discomfort was
concerned, was for his horse or bronco.
Privations that would quickly break down
men used to confning 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 We're common privations They
nave 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 70 get up at dawn and pursue
the ride 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
bTayado but there have been such constant
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 stam-
pedes of buffalo in facing shower of bull
lets, and a storm of feathered arrows. and
the majority of these romances are founded
on facts. 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.
The scout must also have a quick com
prehension and a good memory for details
of country. Scouts Winchel and Flani
gan, who led 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 powders,
while they (the two scouts) dashed into the
open and received the deadly charge intend
ed for the troops, showed as much courage
and quickness of comprehension as legen-
dary 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. General 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 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 an 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 was afoot
or on horseback The turned pebbles de-
note by their color how long they have
been stirred from their beds of earth, and
consequently how long since someone 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
unobservable to the followers-that the
enemy has passed along that way. and
also the number of the enemy. Think of
trailing a band of Indians among the fast
nesses of a mountain range and telling
from bent grass, turned leaves, prints of