Campaigning with Crook, and Stories of Army LifeKing, Charles
History
Campaigning with Crook, and Stories of Army Life
King, Charles
Crook, George, 1829-1890; Indians of North America -- Wars -- 1866-1895; United States. Army. Cavalry, 5th
The most tireless men in pursuit of Indian knowledge were the
correspondents of the papers. Frequent mention has already been made of
Mr. Finerty, of the _Chicago Times_, who was the gem of the lot, but the
_New York Times_ and _Herald_ were represented, as were leading journals
of other large cities. With one exception they proved excellent
campaigners, and welcome, indeed, genial associates; but the exception
was probably one of the most unhappy wretches on the face of the globe.
He had come out as a novice the year previous, and accompanied Colonel
Dodge's exploring expedition to the Black Hills, and before long
developed traits of character that made him somewhat of a nuisance. He
was wofully green, a desperate coward, but so zealous in the cause of
journalism that anything he fancied might interest the readers of the
paper of which he announced himself "commissioner" was sent on
irrespective of facts in the case. The officers found him taking notes
of their conversations, jotting down everything he saw and heard around
camp, caught him prying into matters that were in nature confidential,
and so one night they terrified him to the verge of dissolution by
preparations for defence and the announcement that the cooing and wooing
of an army of wood-doves were the death-chants of hundreds of squaws as
the warriors were stripping for the combat. Another time they primed him
into writing a four-column despatch descriptive of the "Camelquo," a
wonderful animal found only in the Black Hills, the offspring of the
Rocky Mountain elk and the Egyptian camel, the latter being some of the
animals introduced into Texas just before the war for transportation
purposes, who had, so Mr. D---- overheard, escaped from the rebels and
made their way to the Northern plains during the great rebellion, and
there had intermarried with the great elk, the native of the Hills. The
resultant "Camelquo," so D---- enthusiastically informed his paper, was
an animal of the stature of the giraffe, the antlers of the elk, the
humps of the camel, the fleetness and endurance of both parents, and the
unconquerable ferocity of the tiger. How D---- came to discover the sell
in time, my informant, Dr. McGillicuddy, did not remember, but to this
day the maps of the Black Hills bear commemoration of the incident, and
Camelquo Creek is almost as well known as Spring and Rapid. Many a rough
miner has asked since '75 how in Hades, or words to that effect, they
came to have such queer names for their streams in the Hills. Most of
them were named by Colonel Dodge's party, and there was rhyme or reason
in each, even for Amphibious Creek, which, said McGillicuddy, we so
named because it sank out of sight so often and came up smiling so
unexpectedly that it only seemed half land, half water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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