ANADARKO-February 26th, 1892.
[DEAR FAMILY: — ]
I could not write you before as I have been traveling
from pillars to posts, (a joke), in a stage, night and day. I
went to Fort Reno from Oklahoma City where they drove me crazy
almost with town lots and lot sites and homestead holdings.
It was all raw and mean, and greedy for money and a man is
much better off in every way in a tenement on Second Avenue
than the "owner of his own home" in one of these mushroom
cities — So I think. I went to Fort Reno by stage and it
seemed to me that I was really in the West for the first
time — The rest has been as much like the oil towns around
Pittsburgh as anything else. But here there are rolling
prairie lands with millions of prairie dogs and deep canons
and bluffs of red clay that stand out as clear as a razor
hollowed and carved
away by the water long ago. And the grass is as high as a
stirrup and the trees very plentiful after the plains of
Texas. The men at Fort Reno were the best I have met, indeed
I am just a little tired of trying to talk of things of
interest to the Second Lieutenant's intellect. But I had to
leave there because I had missed the beef issue and had to see
it and as it was due here I pushed on. This post is very
beautiful but the men are very young and civil appointments
mainly, which means that they have not been to West Point but
had fathers and have friends with influence and they are
fresh. But the scenery around the post is delightfully wild
and big and there is an Indian camp at the foot of the hill on
which the fort is stuck. Mother, instead of going to Europe,
should come here and see her Indians. Only if she did she
would bring a dozen or more of the children back with her.
They are the brightest spot in my trip and I spend the
mornings and afternoons trying to get them to play with me.
They are very shy and pretty and beautifully barbaric and wear
the most gorgeous trappings. The women, the older ones, are
the ugliest women I ever saw. But the men are fine. I never
saw such color as they give to the landscape and one always
thinks they have dressed up just to please you. I have spent
most of my time and money in buying things from them but they
are very dear because the Indians take long to make them and
do not like to part with them. I have had rough times lately
but I think I would be content to remain in the west six
months if I could. It is the necessity of leaving places I
like and pushing on to places I don't, I dislike. Reno was
fine with a band and lots of fine fellows. This post is not
so queer but they are so young — It makes a great bit of color
though with
the yellow capes of the cavalry and the soldiers wig — waging
red and white flags at other soldiers eight miles away on
other mountains and the Indians in yellow buckskin and
blankets and their faces painted too. I went to the beef
issue to-day — it was not a pretty sight and most barbarous and
cruel. I also went to a council at which the chiefs were
protesting against the cutting down of their rations which is
Commissioner Morgan's doing and which it is expected will lead
to war — We went in out of curiosity and without knowing it
was a Council and were very much ashamed when one of the
Chiefs rose and said he was glad to see the officers present
as they were the best friends the Indians had and the only men
they could respect in times of peace as a friend, or in times
of war as an enemy. At which we took off our hats and sat it
through. Mother's blood would rise if she could hear the
stories they tell, and they are so dignified and polite. They
have an Indian troop here, like the one described in
The
Weekly, which you should read and the Captain told them I was
a great Chief from the East, whereat all the soldiers who were
of noble lineage claimed their privilege of shaking hands with
me, which had a demoralizing effect upon the formation and the
white privates were either convulsed with mirth or red with
indignation. But you cannot treat them like white men who do
not know their ancestors — Dad's letter was the best I have
ever got from him and he had always better write when he is
tired. I will always keep it.
DICK.
