Boys' Book of Frontier FightersSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
History
Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters
Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
Frontier and pioneer life -- United States; Indians of North America -- Wars
How many Indians had been killed nobody knew. Nine were found among
the buildings and within one hundred yards; four more were discovered,
at longer range; in the hills the signs showed that the loss had been
at least thirty or thirty-five.
Early in the morning, while Adobe Walls was busy looking about, a lone
buffalo-hunter ambled in. He was George Bellman, a German whose camp
lay only eight miles up the Canadian; here he lived alone--he had not
heard the shooting nor seen a single Indian, and the ponies strewn over
the prairie much astonished him.
"Vat kind a disease iss der matter mit de hosses, hey?" he asked,
curiously.
"Died of lead poison," answered Cranky McCabe.
The heads of twelve of the Indians were cut off and stuck up on the
pickets and posts of the corral; were left there, to dry in the sun,
for a hideous warning. But the buffalo-hunters decided to hunt no
more, this season. The Pan-handle country was getting "unhealthy!"
So much had Chief Quana and his brother chiefs and warriors achieved.
They had spoiled the buffalo hunting. After a short time many of the
Arapahos and Kiowas and Apaches hurried back to their reservation in
Indian Territory. The Cheyennes and others raided north, through
western Kansas and eastern Colorado. The Chief Quana Comanches went
south, to their own range. He and his Kwahadis or Antelope Eaters
stayed out on their Staked Plain for two years; they were the last to
quit. Then he accepted peace; he saw that it was no use to fight
longer. Moreover, he became one of the best, most civilized Indians in
all the West.
For his Comanches he chose lands at the base of the Wichita Mountains
near Fort Sill in southwestern Oklahoma. He built himself a large
two-story house, well painted and furnished; he lived like a rich
rancher, and owned thousands of acres of farm and thousands of cattle;
he wore the finest of white-man's clothes, or the finest of chief's
clothes as suited him; he was still living there, in 1910, and no man
was more highly respected. He rode in the parade at Washington when
Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated President. President Roosevelt paid
him a return visit, for a wolf hunt.
But the old-time buffalo-hunters who were in Adobe Walls on June 24,
1874, never have forgotten that charge by the Quana Parker fierce
cavalry.
CHAPTER XXI
WHITE MEN AT BAY AGAIN (1874)
THE "FIGHT OF THE PRIVATES"
When the news of the attack upon Adobe Walls had gone forth, and
reports of other raids followed thick and fast, the army in Texas,
Kansas and Indian Territory were ordered out. Plainly enough, there
was a great Indian uprising. The reservation peace had been broken.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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