On the Border With Crook - ERBzine

306 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK.stripped of leaves and bark, and having each some distinctivemark, in the way of feathers, bells, fur, paint, or bright-coloredcloth or flannel. These serve a singular purpose: the greatobject of the Shoshones, Crows, Cheyennes, and Dakotas inmaking war is to set the enemy afoot. This done, his destruction is rendered more easy if not more certain. Ponies are alsothe wealth of the conquerors ; hence, in dividing the spoil, eachman claims the animals first struck by his " coup " stick.With the Snakes were three white men Cosgrove, Yarnell,and Eckles all Texans; and one French-Canadian half-breed,named Luisant. Cosgrove, the leading spirit, was, during theKebellion, a captain in the 32d Texas Cavalry, C. S. A., andshowed he had not forgotten the lessons of the war by theappearance of discipline and good order evinced by his command,who, in this respect, were somewhat ahead of the Crows. Wewere informed that on the march over from Wind River, theSnakes, during one afternoon, killed one hundred and seventyfivebuffaloes on the eastern slope of the Owl Creek Mountains.In the early hours of the afternoon the Crows had a foot-race,for twenty cartridges a side the ; running was quite good for thedistance of one hundred and fifty yards.At sunset we buried Private Nelson, who had died the previousnight. The funeral cortege was decidedly imposing, because, ason all former occasions of the same nature, all officers and mennot engaged on other duty made it a point to be present at thegrave of every dead comrade the noise of the; parting volleysbrought our savages up on a gallop, persuaded that the Siouxwere making a demonstration against some part of our lines ;they dashed up to the side of the grave, and there they satmotionless upon their ponies, feathers nodding in the breeze,and lances gleaming in the sun. Some of them wore as many asfour rings in each ear, the entire cartilage being perforated fromapex to base.