The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1907-11-03
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Dl1gler Dick.
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! Having year Yet TO serve, we oi
| the Michigan Cavalry brigade were
sent to the Indian country after the
grand review il Washington. lust
where we picked up little Dick no one
! seemed To know.
| We had q lot of hangcr$-nn when we
| left for the march across the plains,
and strict orders We're issued 10 weed
| them out and leave them behind. Dice
WAS one of them, but we had fixed
| things. Three day; later lie Joined IL
under cover of night. mounted ca I
| government mule. and from thence on
! he was one of us. In his idle hours al
the fort he hatl learned to blow q bugie
and give most Of the calls. bat there
was no place for him. 1t WAS III the
! Indian heyday Almost every tribe in
| the west was hostile and out on the
| warpath. and when once we haG left
the frontier behind us all the talk was
of the red man and his way of fighting
and his tiendish cruelties. There would
| be no such thing as fear with the old
veterans of the Army of the Potomac
but we often wondered how Our boy
would take it. He was no boaStcr. He
never said whether he would run or
fight, but he fought.
One day the Sixth was ordered ont
until. we had come up with the war
party ana punished it. At Il certain
point we divided into three columns.
| Half an hour later the first column
/ walked into an ambush with its eyes
/ wide open. We were grecnhOrnS tit
Indian fiGh'iu@ lEalf dozen men
| had fallen y" q he colonel looked
! around for II Ter The lad had
! been one Of the Est to fall. The other
| columns must come to oar relief or
we should be wiped out. We could
| neither advance nor retreat. and the
! hidden redskins offered us no target.
| 1t was then that little Dick dropped
the carbine he had taken from 4 dead
troopers hands. and running forward,
he seized the bugle from the grip of
| the dying lad and shouted
"All right colonel: I know what you
want"
The other columns had heard the
sound of the firing but had made he
move. 1t was only when they heard
the notes of the buSle telling that we
were in sore straits that they came
gallopirvg down and helped us win q
victory
don't know how they fixed it. but
from that day on little Dick was osie
of the regular bugiers. 1t took him
| away from us much of his time, but
when he had half an hour to spare
| he was back home" with us. 1t was
in the early summer when we hcaded
out on the plains. For months We
| fought the red man whenever and
wherever We could bring him to bay.
As autumn came we pressed him far
| thcr and farther toward his winter re
treat. and one clustering day the com
| mand WIS divided to deal him stag
germ" blow. Tho chiefs Staked all OF
J a big fight and lost We routed and
! pursued them. and it was after the
| pursuit ended that Bugler Dick was
| found TO be among the missing. His
bucle calls had been heard all through
the fight. ana men had seen him srnil-
| ing and laughing under hot fire. but
as we went into camp and the roll was
| called there VAS nc one to answer to
| the name.
| Many coed ,!cn had fallen that day,
| ComraIc ''.a': lost cOmradc. and in 1t
least tho ases brother had lost
| brother H. -: the night came down
it secIro.l t''It in losing little Dick we
! had lost the one most beloved in the
whole command. In the bright moon
| light half Il hundred of us forgot our
WEAKNESS and hunger and hunted for
him. We searched the open plain, the
dark ravines, the Tickets ana the viii
low fringed streams. We found our
| dead and wounded. and we found the
| stark forms of hundred savages. but
| we did not find the one we sought.
! Ry the time the sun rose it became
plain that Bugler Dick had somehow
| been taken prisoner and spirited away.
| There were those who told such tales
| Of cruelties toward the whites that one
| felt his hair crawling but when these
! had set our teeth ON edge and brought
member that the prisoner was only a
| lad and that the Indians often adopted
| boys of his age and treated them kind
! ly.
One of the sorrowful things about
| It was that the expedition was ordered
| in for the winter. 1t was making
ready for its return when such a
strong appeal was made to the com
mander that he sent out 400 men of
! the Sixth to see if any trace of the
boy could he found. He would have
| done no more had our colonel been
missing We followed the trail of the
beaten warriors for fifty miles. It
was only Wllea they discovered what
4 small command we were that tho
rallied aud laid in ambush for Us iii =
great rlvin". We believed them still
flying and We're riding into the jaws OF
death, ont g which 10 man would
have cm"-"rI alive. whom we heard