each.) We will catch up with some train and they will have to give us something to eat.
It began to grow light when suddenly we heard a sound coming from the brush, something like a horse’s whinney. And sure enough, here are all our eight horses, feeding together on a patch of fine grass. It happened this way: The animal that barked behind me was a wolf and not a dog. I surprised him while he was eating a dead ox. He was running away from me and not after me. Three days later we caught up with a train. The owner took pity on us and gave us dinner and some flour, which we divided equally. We now fared better. Flour soup was a common dish with us. The recipe for making it is simple and ought to be printed in a scientific cook book. This makes enough for. two persons: Take two spoonsful of flour and mix it with cold water, very thin. Pour this into boiling water and let stand until cool and thick (paper paste).
The emigrant train in question carried twelve scalped people, scalped by the Indians of course. This company of well armed men, numbering 172 people, shot and killed every Indian they met on sight, and for that reason the Indians got bad. (Note of transcriber: The inference is, that Francl and his companions learned of the following incident from the members of this train). After our departure from Fort Laramie, on the 7th day of Aug. 1854, an emigrant lost a cow. He told the captain at Fort Laramie that the Sioux Indians had stolen it from him. The captain ordered a company of twenty-five soldiers with one cannon to go to the Indian village and demanded that the Indian who stole the cow (and also killed and eaten it) be given up. The Indian was not forthcoming, so the captain ordered the soldiers to shoot. They shot only once. The captain was the first to fall. In a short time all the rest of the soldiers were killed. Then the Indians went to Fort Laramie, attacked the soldiers there and killed all, from the highest to the lowest, except one soldier who escaped and saved himself by running away. He was brought safely to Salt Lake City. (Note of transcriber: This incident occurred on the 17th of August 1854 and was the beginning of all succeeding troubles with the Indians. A. E. Sheldon, in his book “History and Stories of Nebraska”, mentions it in a chapter he calls “The Mormon Cow” and the following is taken from it):
“In the early days the Sioux Indians of the plains were firm friends of the white people. The first traders among them were welcomed as brothers. They left their goods piled in the open air in Sioux villages and found them safe on their return. The white men who made the first trails across Nebraska often found food and shelter with the Sioux. The early emigrant trail wound for four hundred miles through the heart of the Sioux country. Over it went white men, singly and in companies, with ox-wagons, on foot, and pushing wheelbarrows and no harm came to them from the Sioux.
“All this was changed in a single day. The Sioux became the fierce and bloody foes of the white men. War with the Sioux nation lasted thirty years. It cost thousands of lives and millions of dollars. The beginning of this bloody war was caused by a lame Mormon cow.
“On the 17th day of August 1854, a party of Mormon emigrants on their way to the Great Salt Lake were toiling along the Oregon trail in the valley of the North Platte. They were in what was then Nebraska Territory, but is now about forty miles beyond the Nebraska state line and eight miles east of Fort Laramie, Wyoming. A great camp of thousands of Indians stretched for miles along the overland trail. They were the Brule, Oglala and Minneconjou bands—the whole Sioux nation on the plains—and were gathered to receive the goods which the United States had promised to pay them for the road through their land.
“Behing the train of Mormon wagons lagged a lame cow driven by a man. When near the Brule Siouw camp something scared the cow. She left the road and ran directly into the Sioux camp. The man ran after her, but stopped after a few steps, fearing to follow her alone into a camp of so many Indians. . . In the Brule camp was a Young Sioux of the Minneconjou, or Shooters-in-the-Mist band. These were wilder than the other Sioux. The young Minneconjou killed the lame cow and his friends helped to eat her.
“The next day the Mormon emigrants stopped at Fort Laramie and complained to the commander there that they had lost their cow. On the morning of August 19th, Lieutenant Grattan and twenty-nine men with two cannons were sent from the fort to the Brule camp after the young Indian who had killed the cow. Lieut. Grattan was a young man from Vermont, barely twenty-one years old, who had no experience with Indians.
“The great chief among. the Sioux at that time was named The Bear. He had a talk with the lieutenant and said he would try to get the young Minneconjou to give himself up. It was a great disgrace for a free Indian of the plains to be taken to prison and the friends of the cow-killer would not let him go. The Bear then tried to have Lieut. Grattan go back to the fort and let him bring the young Minneconjou later. The lieutenant ordered his soldiers to run the two cannons to the top of the hill, to point them on the Brule camp and told the Bear he would open fire if the cow-killer was not given up at once. Pointing to the thousands of Indians, men, women and children, who were spread over the valley as far as eye could see, The Bear said: “These are all my people. Young man, you must be crazy,” and walked to his lodge, while his varriors began to get their guns and bows. A moment later the two cannons and a volley of muskets were fired at the Sioux camp. The Bear was killed. A storm of Sioux bullets and arrows cut down Lieut. Grattan and his men before they had time to reload their guns.
“The Sioux camp went wild. The death of The Bear, the taste of white man’s blood, set them crazy. Warriors mounted their ponies and rode about the field. The squaws tore down the tepees and packed them for flight. Some one called out to the Indians to take their goods which were in a storehouse near a trader’s post waiting for the United States officer who was coming to distribute them. The Sioux burst into the storehouse, tumbled the goods from the shelves, piled them on their ponies. Before sundown the Indians were riding over the northern ridges by the thousands, carrying away their plunder. They buried The Bear wrapped in the richest buffalo robes, in a high pine tree near the Niobrara River. From this burial the bands scattered over Nebraska, Wyoming and Dakota, urging Indians everywhere to kill the white men and to drive them from the country. Thus the Sioux war began.” — —
Henry and I are making preparations for the trip across the desert. In 806 miles there is no water, no groves, no wood, only small, dry, sandy mounds. We
