the cattle. The wagons were zigzagging along the prairie according as the oxen were herded here and there on the route, and they had got the whole business across the river to their camp. They had cut down telegraph poles, and camped from time to time, and burned the telegraph poles for a long distance. They had cut them up and dragged them with ponies so that in the camp, which was now in plain sight of our post and on the north side of the river, they were having high jinks with fires made out of telegraph poles, drinking 'S. T. 1860 X,' 'Plantation' and 'Hostetter' Bitters, and all kinds of good stuff which they found in those wagons. This was the condition of things at sunset on the day that we got into the Julesburg Post, February 2, 1865.
he arrangement which we made for the evening was that the guards should go one hour on and two off. We got the civilians together, divided them into groups of three, and put a civilian in charge of each group, so that he could have his men ready, the object being to stay prepared for a rush on the fort, and to have one-third of the garrison, soldiers and civilians, ready and on guard to repel the first symptom of attack. As for Captain O'Brien and myself, we determined to stay up all night, except that we would take turns in dozing if everything was looking favorable.
The best point for observation was the haystack in the northwest corner of our Post. The stable was nearly as high, but was sort of in the center, so that a person upon it could not see well over the haystack. The haystack was a large, heavy, weighted-down stack of about eighty tons. Captain O'Brien and I got on top of it, and worked holes down in it so as to be somewhat protected from the weather, and yet to have a good observation, The stack was between thirty and forty feet long on the summit. It could be reached by getting up on the sod wall, which at that point was about eight feet high, and then getting up from that portion of the stack whence the hay was being used. Fearing that the Indians might come up and start to set fire to the stack we had down on the ground several camp-kettles full of water with a quart tin cup floating in the top of each. The weather had very much moderated, and the afternoon of the day had been quite pleasant for a winter day, although freezing. The sun set gloriously, with a livid burst of red which held quite late. We could see a large smothered camp-fire, and could hear yells and shouting, and every once in a while some Indian shot off a gun. The Captain and I took a-plenty of ammunition and a lot of hard-tack to munch on, and as soon as dusk began to fall we got up into our holes on that haystack. Guards were also on the north end of the stable, and on the barracks, and on the headquarters building. Our fort, being made of sod, was incombustible, and we felt no real danger except as it might come to the hay, which, if it got on fire, might burn us all out. We had some of the men sheltered down under the sod wall on the inside at the end of the haystack, ready to take any action that might be required.
About the time that nightfall set in the big camp-fire of the Indians began to blaze up strongly, and we could see the cattle coming in in droves, both east and west, and also bands of American horses, not large in number, but they were prancing about. We could see with our glasses quite plainly. In a little while the fire grew larger, and the Indians began to caper around it in a war-dance. We could bear them shrieking and yelling, we could hear the turn- turn of a native drum, and we could hear a chorus shouting as if there were squaws there taking a part in the exercises. Then we could see them circling around the fire, then separately stamping the ground and making gestures. It seemed as if the fire grew larger and more scattered, and the ring grew larger and the yelling grew stronger, and finally it was a perfect pandemonium lit up with the wildfire of burning telegraph poles. We knew that the bottled liquors destined for Denver were beginning to get in their work and a perfect orgy was ensuing. It kept up constantly. It seemed as if exhausted Indians fell back and let fresh ones take hold, and around that fire they did jump and scream, and make motions with
lance and tomahawk, and caper and cut up, in a wild and picturesque way.
It was a very thrilling scene, except that we knew if they had courage to make a dash on the post there would not be any of us left by daylight. Pioneers told us, however, that the Indians would not make a dash on us in that time, but that we might look for them at sun-up. In the mean time our telegraph line was down, from the burning of the station, and from the destruction of poles west of us, so that we had no way of sending out word of the post further than had already gone.
The Captain and I stood in our holes in the hay up about to our waists, with our target rifles on one side of us and our box of ammunition and crackers on the other side, and watching with the field-glass what might take place. We were suffering somewhat from anxiety. We had also a couple of dogs up with us in holes in the hay, and the dogs seemed just as earnest and as excited as anybody. As late as twelve o'clock there seemed to be no diminution of the orgy. It seemed to keep on just as strong as ever, and we saw ponies coming across the prairie dragging pieces of telegraph poles chopped down, and every once in a while the sparks would rise as a new piece was thrown on the fire.
Our dogs were muttering and grumbling all the time, but the ground was practically clear in front of us for quite a distance, with the exception of some little clumps of sagebrush and cactus, and these were scattering. We kept our eye, however, well upon the prairie in front of us, so that no skulking Indian might come up and pick us off. Some of the time we were crouched down so that we could just plainly see over the hay with our field-glasses.
All at once a spark came before our eyes. I could not understand it for a second. It seemed as if a star fell. it came in a curve, and fell into our hay. An Indian had crept up, in spite of us, back of a sage-brush, and had fired a fire-arrow right into our haystack. I was taken much by surprise, but by the time it struck the stack I knew what it was. Captain O'Brien happened to have his gun in his hands, and with great presence of mind he drew up and fired the best he could in the direction of the arrow. The hero of the occasion was Jimmie O'Brien. The arrow had scarcely struck the hay when it flashed. I struck the spot with my carbine, but Jimmie O'Brien grabbed a cup, jumped up on the wall, and with one dash he made a center shot with the tin cup and put the entire fire out with one effort. It was the prettiest thing I ever saw. The boys on detail all cheered, and Jimmie O'Brien never got over being complimented for his presence of mind and his steady nerve upon the occasion. But we saw no Indian arise from where the arrow came, and the Captain was almost an unerring shot. We all believed that the Captain killed the Indian, but we never got the Indian's body, because as a matter of fact, the Indians were skulking around the post that night and we never got a chance to see them or get a shot at them. What they did may be imagined from the fact that the next morning out on a telegraph pole within twenty feet of our sod fort the Captain's dog, 'Kearney,' was found with its throat cut, and tied hanging about six feet up on the telegraph pole. So that, if the Captain killed the Indian, they could have got him away that night, because towards morning it was cloudy and dark.
After the fire-arrow episode we kept a still closer lookout. Once in a while we would think we saw a moving form or something crawling on the ground, and we kept plugging away with our rifles at all such symptoms, so as not only to get an Indian if we could, but keep them on the qui vive, to let them know we were waiting for them. About one o'clock the orgy seemed to reach its height. The yells were the most blood-curdling and frantic I ever heard, and although we were a long distance off, perhaps a half-mile, we could hear them all upon the midnight air quite plainly. And we discussed among ourselves whether or not the bottled liquors would not get them finally worked up to a point that would lead them to besiege us. Suddenly the fire began to grow brighter, and greater, and the Indians circling around it seemed to form a larger ring. We soon saw that the fire had spread to the prairie- grass, and that the Indians were not trying to put it out. The night was perfectly still. There was no breeze of any kind, and the prairie-grass burned slowly, and the Indian ring kept growing larger and larger as the fire increased. And still the thing went on until the fire was an acre in extent, and still an undiminished ring of Indians were going around it shouting and yelling, and it kept growing in extent until there were at least four acres of this burning prairie in a ring, and still the Indians were shouting and prancing singly and in groups. Then we all began to think that the thing was going to break up with an attack. The fire finally spread and spread until it lit up the whole country, and all at once the Indians were not seen between us and the fire, and the smoke prevented us from seeing where they were.
We concluded they were all coming towards the post. The smoke began to bang sort of in a pall, not being borne in either direction. We got the bugler up, and had him sound the assembly. We got him up on top of the stable to blow bugle-calls. Everybody turned out, everybody was assigned to a duty. One of the howitzers we got on top of the stable, which was really heavy enough to hold a cannon. At the corners of the fort several sentinels were placed to watch carefully, and still we watched, and still the prairie-fire spread. It finally struck the river on the south, and stopped; then it struck up Lodgepole on the east, and stopped; and then it started up the river, going quite slowly, but still no Indians. We imagined a short time before daylight that we saw some Indians south of the post, and then we imagined that we saw some among the hills. It turned out, however, that they were simply reinforcements of Indians, few in number, coming with great speed. They passed west of the post, going towards the river.
