The other instance was ten years later. During the Indian campaign in the winter of 1868-69 I was riding with a party of officers and enlisted men, south of the Arkansas, about fourty miles from Fort Dodge. We were watching some cavalrymen unearth three or four dead warriors who had been killed by two scouts in a fierce unequal fight a few weeks before, and as we rode into a small ravine among the sand hills, we suddenly came upon a rudely constructed Cheyenne lodge. Entering, we discovered on a rough platform, fashioned of green poles, a dead warrior in full war-dress; his shield of buffalo-hide, pipe ornamented with eagles' feathers, and medicine bag, were lying on the ground beside him. At his head, on her knees, with hands clasped in the attitude of prayer, was a squaw frozen to death. Which had first succumbed, the wounded chief, or the devoted wife in the awful cold of that winter prairie, will never be known, but it proved her love for the man who had perhaps beaten her a hundred times. Such tender and sympathetic affection is characteristic of the sex everywhere, no less with the poor savage than in the dominant white race.
To return to our description of the average Indian village: Each lodge at the grand encampment of Big Timbers in the era of traffic with the nomads of the great plains, owned its separate herd of ponies and mules. In the exodus to some other favoured spot, two dozen or more of these individual herds travelled close to each other but never mixed, each drove devotedly following its bell-mare, as in a pack-train. This useful animal is generally the most worthless and wicked beast in the entire outfit.
The animals with the lodge-pole carriages go as they please, no special care being taken to guide them, but they too instinctively keep within sound of the leader. I will again quote Garrard for an accurate description of the moving camp when he was with the Cheyennes in 1847:--
The young squaws take much care of their dress and horse equipments; they dash furiously past on wild steeds, astride of the high-pommelled saddles. A fancifully coloured cover, worked with beads or porcupine quills, making a flashy, striking appearance, extended from withers to rump of the horse, while the riders evinced an admirable daring, worthy of Amazons. Their dresses were made of buckskin, high at the neck, with short sleeves, or rather none at all, fitting loosely, and reaching obliquely to the knee, giving a Diana look to the costume; the edges scalloped, worked with beads, and fringed. From the knee downward the limb was encased in a tightly fitting legging, terminating in a neat moccasin--both handsomely wrought with beads. On the arms were bracelets of brass, which glittered and reflected in the radiant morning sun, adding much to their attractions. In their pierced ears, shells from the Pacific shore were pendent; and to complete the picture of savage taste and profusion, their fine complexions were eclipsed by a coat of flaming vermilion.