Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1875 — An Indian Drama. [ARTICLE]

An Indian Drama.

A correspondent of the New York Herald with Hayden's surveying party, in the “ Bad Lands,” writes • “ On our way to the Park we met a party en route to the mines, among whom we noticed a jovial, heartylook i fig man, dressed in an ornamented buckskin suit, with long, dark hair hanging down his back, and armed with a rifle, a revolver and a gigantic hunting-knife. Supposing him, from his appearance, to be some celebrated character, we found, upon inquiry, that it was ‘Oregon Bill,’ an old Government scout and a friend of Buffalo Bill. The party accompanied us 1 for a couple of days, into Baker’s Park, ! and many a good talk and hearty laugh did we have in company with Oregon Bill. He has been in this Western country nearly twenty years, part of which time hp scoute*’. on the plains in company with Buffalo Bill. In 1872 he was in the Black Hills, and says he found gold-dust in the gulches of the foot-hills on the northwest slope of the Hills. The squaws of the Blackfeet and Crow Indians were in the habit of adorning themselves with gold trinkets which, tie thinks, evidently came from that section. A year ago Bill went East with a delegation of Cawsand Osages, and, during the Centennial Exposition, he expects to exhibit a party of Caw Indians, wtiose language he speaks fluently. His I private name is W. J. Speck, and he is thirty-eight years of age. Bill has entered the mines, with ‘the other boys,’ to seek his fortune, but as long as lie” has enough to eat and a tribe of Indians to.escort he is always perfectly happy. Although he is a man of education, tine perceptions and good connections, he prefers this free and roving life, and, like all true ‘sons of the wilds,’.is proud of his reputation as a scout and a hunter. In giving an account of the first night’s Indian performances at Fort Leavenworth, he says: ‘We had had no rehearsal, and when the hour arrived we knew no more what the Indians would do than the audience. But I went behind the scenes and told them to go out and do their best. At the given signal they went hooting and yelling on the stage, and commenced a war-dance. They had three fresh scalps, which they had captured from another tribe a few days before, and, as they progressed in the dance and grew excited, they flourished their tomahawks and knives and flung the scalps into the air, cutting at them with their weapons as they descended, and licking them with their tongues wtienever they could get them in their hands. At length they got worked up to such a pitch of excitement that, forgetting for the time where they were, they leaped clear over the orchestra and ran, yelling and whooping, up and down the aisles. The audience were so frightened that most of them ran out of the house, and we were rather scared ourselves, as we did not know how the thing would end. Two of us ran out on the stage and shouted and gesticulated until we were tired, without any effect, when one of the squaws came out and told us to let them have it out or they might do some damage. This was the last night we gave a performance without a rehearsal, for the Indians told us they thought they were to do just as they had done.’ Then he gave us an imitation of the war-dance and accompanying weird chant, and it was done to such perfection that our flesh crept and we almost imagined him a warrior in disguise.”