By W .
S. Coburn
During the winter of 1865 I had a man and his wife working for me, and
one day in December, just about noon, the lady saw someone chasing the pup
around the house and exclaimed, "O, look! here is a squaw." The supposed
squaw heard her and came up timidly to the door and said, "Me no squaw."
It was a white boy, apparently twelve years of age and could not
talk English, only a word once in a while. He looked like he was nearly
worn out and was carrying a dead raven. We asked him why he chased the
pup, and he answered, "Me hungry; eat him," and he made signs of catching
it and eating.
After we had fed him, he told us his story, by
means of signs and what little knowledge we had of the Indian language.
As long as he could remember he lived with the Indians. One white
squaw in the same band told him that he did not belong to the Indians, and
there was a better life for him back in the heap big villages (meaning the
eastern cities), and that some day he must run away and find his own
people.
One day there was a train of wagons crossing the plains
and the Indians sent him and an Indian boy out to spy on it. They followed
it until dark and yet it did not make camp. Finally the sayings of the
white squaw came into his mind, and the more he thought of his own people,
whom he had never seen, the greater grew his desire to see the heap big
villages.
When the Indian boy rode back to the lodges, he was
alone. The white boy had turned his pony's head toward the north and was
hurrying away from the Indian camp. By various ways he obtained food and
would sleep out on the prairie some nights; at other times he would find
shelter around some of the ranches. He would seldom go near the ranches,
for he had been raised to believe the settlers were his worst enemies and
that they were cruel and treacherous.
He had wandered about three
hundred miles up the Arkansas river when his pony fell in its tracks,
ridden to death.
The boy was determined to complete his
undertaking, so he bravely started on foot. He did not know how far he had
traveled when he reached my place, but had lived three days on the raven.
We named him Indian Charley and kept him three or four months. One
day, after he got more used to us and knew he was in friendly hands, he
asked me about the fight of Captain Peacock last October.
I told
him all about it and took him down where the Indian bodies were lying just
as they had fallen. Charley turned them over and called them by name. One
he called Roman Nose.
Indian Charley was a bright and intelligent
boy, and soon learned to like his new home. He picked up our language
quite readily, but had been with the Indians so long that he had some of
their traits. Every time he was offended it was, "Me kill; me scalp." On
one occasion someone was teasing him about a little girl at one of the
neighboring ranches. Charley did not like to be teased, so he grabbed up a
gun and said, "Me kill," and was just ready to shoot when one of the men
took the gun from him.
The other ranchers up and down the river
for about forty miles began to get suspicious and decided that Charley was
spying for the Indians. I did not think so, but at last, to ease the minds
of my neighbors, I saw I would have to get rid of him.
Colonel
King, with the Sixth Missouri cavalry, was starting for St. Louis, and I
asked him to take Charley and see what he could do for the boy. King
consented to take him. I fixed up a good outfit for him and told him of
our arrangements for his welfare. He did not want to leave me, and said,
"Tonight, all still, me scalp, take horse and come back." I tried to
reason with him, but could not; so I told King about his threat and also
his Indian traits, so he would be prepared for any outbreak.
Colonel King arrived in St. Louis with the boy and advertised him. People
came from far and near hoping it might be a child they had lost, or one of
some of their friends, but they would all leave disappointed, and it began
to look as though Indian Charley would not find his own people whom he
took such desperate chances to see.
Several years previous to
this, a family started across the plains for California. Their people
never heard from them directly, but a short time after they started, a
brother of the father of the unfortunate family was told that they had all
been massacred by the Indians.
When he had heard so much about the
unknown boy in St. Louis, he began to think possibly one of his brother's
boys might have been spared and taken captive by the Indians. He took some
photographs of his brother's family and went to St. Louis. By means of a
particular characteristic he was enabled to identify Indian Charley as his
brother's youngest child, who was only a baby when they started across the
plains.
Charley was taken to his uncle's home in Quincy, Illinois,
and put in school.
Four years later, when I was standing on a
railroad platform, a fine looking young fellow jumped from the train, ran
up to me, shook hands and asked me all kinds of questions about myself. I
answered his questions and said, "Well, you have got me bested; I don't
know you." "Why, don't you remember Indian Charley?" I was greatly
surprised and pleased to meet the boy again. We only had a few moments to
talk before his train went on. I never saw him again, but have been told
since that the Indian traits had been so impressed on his mind that he
became a roving and reckless fellow and eventually went.
Some of the Pioneers of Colorado
Source: True History of some of the Pioneers of Colorado, by Miss
Luella Shaw, Press of Carson Harper Co, Denver, Colorado, 1909 |
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