366 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



The Story of Arapahoe Joe 



J. F. Crawford, Wyoming?.* 



When 1 first came to Saratoga, Wyoming (then called Warm 

 Springs), in 1878, I became acquainted with Frank Williams, 

 a man who had been on the plains and in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains since 1865. He often rode a compactly built buckskin 

 stallion, with a very long, silvery white mane and tail, both 

 of which reached the ground. His foretop was so heavy 

 that I had to part it to see his eyes. He was one of the most 

 remarkable horses I ever saw. While perfectly kind and 

 bidable, he was the most intensely alive of any animal I ever 

 saw. He took a most absorbing interest in life and nothing 

 escaped his watchful eye. He seemed to never tire, and no 

 road was too long for his short, springy lope. When I asked 

 Williams about him he remarked that there was a very inter- 

 esting story connected with the horse and related the cir- 

 cumstances by which he came into possession of the animal, 

 which I will give in his own words: 



"It was during the winter of 1873-4. Myself, and four 

 other white men, were encamped for the winter with a band 

 of Ute Indians, at the junction of the Yampa and Green 

 rivers, in the extreme northwestern part of Colorado. Our 

 camp was on the tongue of land between the two rivers, in 

 a heavy growth of cottonwood timber. It was an ideal spot 

 for a winter camp, for we were well sheltered from storms, 

 grass was good for the horses and game was abundant. 



"There were some twenty teepees in the Indian village 

 and we were on friendly terms with its inhabitants, as we 

 had shared in their fall hunt for their winter's meat. So we 

 came and went as we pleased, and the old men of the tribe, 

 as well as the young warriors, were often friendly visitors 

 at our camptlre. 



Cimarron, Kansas. 



"The weather was fine for a couple of months, when there 

 came a snow a foot in depth which, owing to the sudden drop 

 in the temperature, crusted over solidly, so that it would 

 easily bear the weight of a man. This was followed, in a 

 few days, by another foot of snow and this, too, crusted 

 over; and still another foot of snow, and another heavy 

 crust, and yet another fall of a foot, and another firm crust. 

 All this took place inside of ten days. It was something 

 very unusual, so the Indians told us, and the old gray-headed 

 men of the tribe would come around and protest that in all 

 their lives they had never known such a thing to occur in 

 that country before. They prophesied that when the moon 

 fulled there would come a rain and wash it all away. 



"But the moon waxed and waned and still no rain. This 

 alarmed the Indians very much. They began to show uneasi- 

 ness, fearing they had, in some way, offended their rain-god. 

 The medicine man of the tribe called a council and it was de- 

 termined that something must be done to propitiate the of- 

 fended deity, and to this end they assembled in one of their 

 teepees to sing their rain song. 



"It would be impossible to describe the nature of that 

 chant; it was indescribably weird, and seemed to have in 

 it the voices of the wind, the water, the growing leaves and 

 grass, all blended into a harmonious whole, and exactly imi- 

 tated the gentle patter of the rain on a tent cover. Indeed, 

 it was so realistic that often, in the dead of the night, I 

 would put my hand to the tent, feeling sure that it must 

 be raining. 



"In consequence of the very deep, crusted snow, which 

 covered all the country like a mantle, the game had nearly 

 all left that part of the range. What remained grew so poor 

 that it was not fit for food. But we were compelled' to eat it, 

 such as it was. One of our party, an Englishman, was very 

 fond of fat meat. He would sit by the campfire for hours 

 at a time, watching a pot of boiling meat, simply to note the 

 little globules of fat that rose to the surface, calling them 

 'birds' eyes.' But one day, during this period, he arose from 

 this occupation with the disconsolate remark: 'Ah, boys! 

 there's nary a birds' eye there.' 



Mr. Crawford is the publisher of the Saratoga Sun and is 

 one of the oldest and most highly esteemed citizens of his 

 district. 



"The scarcity of meat soon made itself felt in the Indian 

 village. They had drawn their winter's supply of Hour from 

 the Agency in the fall, but, with their proverbial lack of thrift 

 and the unusual demand made upon it by the lack of game, 

 it had given out, and the entire village was reduced to meat 

 straight and a very poor quality at that. As for the older 

 people of the tribe, they had been accustomed to a strictly 

 meat diet before they came under the fatherly care of Uncle 

 Sam, and were not so much distressed by this state of affairs; 

 but the children, and especially the pappooses, found it a 

 great hardship to live on meat alone. Many of the little 

 fellows, those under the age of six years, sickened and died 

 by reason of the lack of 'biscuit,' as they called bread made 

 of (lour. It was most pitiful to hear their little feeble voices, 

 all over the camp, crying for 'biscuit,' 'biscuit.' 



"It was a very common sight, during that trying period, 

 to see a squaw go out to the edge of the camp, dig a hole 

 in the snow, and lay away some little form in its last sleep, 

 that had literally died of starvation. 



"In this tribe was a sub-chief by the name of 'Arapahoe 

 Joe.' I never could learn how he, a Ute Indian, came to 

 have such a name the name of the hereditary enemy of his 

 race. This chief was a fine looking fellow, fully six I'eet 

 tall, and as straight as an arrow. He had but one child, a 

 boy of about five years of age, I should say. This little 

 fellow, the very apple of his father's eye, had, so far, escaped 

 the fate of nearly all of the other pappooses of the village. 

 The mother had secreted a little flour and had doled out a 

 'biscuit' a day to the little one, denying her husband and 

 herself a single taste of the luxury. Bye and bye this little 

 hoard gave out, and it was not long until the little one fell 

 sick for lack of it. His feeble little wail for bread was most 

 heart-breaking, indeed. It seemed certain that he. too, must 

 die and be buried in the snow that hemmed us all in, like a 

 great frozen ocean, whose bounds none of us d^ 

 vred attempt to pass. 



"At the most desperate stage of this famine 

 Arapahoe Joe came to me and proposed a horse- 

 trade. I had a fine, large, Iron-gray horse, that 

 1 set much store by, he was so strong and full of 

 life and energy. We called him an 'American* 

 horse to distinguish him from the Indian ponies 

 of the country. Joe wanted to trade for him 

 and offered me four good animals from his herd 

 in exchange. 



"I readily agreed to the trade, and he brought 

 me four horses, the pick of his bunch and, in 

 addition, a little two-year-old buckskin colt. 



"I said, 'Joe, these four horses are enough; 

 I do not want that little fellow. He would only 

 be a bother to take care of and I am satisfied 

 with the others.' 



"Then Joe. in his broken English, explained 

 that the colt belonged to his pappoose, and if the 

 little fellow died, as he feared he would, It would 

 be necessary, according to the custom of his race, 

 to kill the pony. He said he had become attached to 

 to the colt and did not like the idea of having to 

 kill it, and begged me to take it, explaining that 

 he would kill some other horse if the boy died, 

 which would do quite as well. 



"His appeal was so urgent and he seemed to 

 feel so keenly the duty of having, if necessary, 

 to kill the colt, that I yielded and took the little 

 animal into my herd. I had often noted the 

 great bond of sympathy that seemed to exist 

 between the pappoose and the colt. When Joe 

 would bring his herd into camp he would always 

 place the little one astride of this pony, ami it 

 would wander around among the other horses, while the boy 

 amused himself with a string, trying to lasso the animals in 

 the bunch, in imitation of what he had seen his father do. 



"Joe had no sooner come into possession of the big gray 

 than he began to saddle the animal and make every prepara- 

 tion for a journey. 



"I was interested and asked: 

 " 'Joe. what are you going to do? 



" 'Goin' Brown's Hole,' he explained, 'get flour for pap- 

 poose. Pappoose heap sick; must have biscuit; no get bis- 

 cuit, pappoose die.' 



"By this time the rest of our crow T d had become inter- 

 ested and they all joined me in trying to dissuade the Indian 

 from trying such a foolish thing as to start out on a journey 

 of any kind so long as that snow held on. But to all of our 

 protestations he would only say: 'Must get biscuit for pap- 

 poose,' and continued his preparations for the trip. 



"And so he started for Brown's Hole, forty miles distant, 

 as the crow flies. We all gathered around to watch him off. 

 fascinated by the daring courage of the man. Indians are 

 always very indulgent to their children, rarely ever correct- 

 ing and never punishing them. I had never beheld any very 

 great sacrifice on the part of any Indian parent for his child 

 and I never suspected that any of them would risk their 

 lives, like this one was going to do. in order to save the life 

 of one of their children. I knew that so far as Joe. hiniM It'. 

 was concerned, he would have sat down and stoically starved 

 to death without a murmur. He would probably have shown 

 the same stolid indifference to the death of his squaw, or any 

 other member of his tribe, but that little, feeble wail of 

 'biscuit,' that was going up from his wigwam, had moved him 

 as nothing else on earth had ever done before and he was 

 now ready to take his life in his hands and face almost cer- 

 tain death, out on that treacherous expanse of snow, that 

 ocean of Ice and frost, which not even the biting wind from 

 the north had been able to make an impression upon. 



"We all stood there, amazed at what we saw, watching 

 Joe and his horse plunging in the snow. The iron gray, a 

 heavy animal, was breaking through the crust at every stride, 

 rising- and falling, like a boat on troubled waters. When 

 they had become a mere black speck on the horizon someone 

 suggested that we gather our belongings and follow him. 



