The Plainsman

On the Frontier with “Yellowstone” Kelly; His Adventures in the Territory of the Hostile Sioux

(by Dan R. Conway - originally published in

the Hysham Echo on Sept. 23, 1926)

“I’ve seen some bits of service of a somewhat stirrin’ brand.

When the West was callin’ lusty for a civilizin’ hand;

And, myself, I’ve had some practice in that missionary work.

With the white men that did the business from the buttes to Alburqurque.

- - Joseph Mills Manson.

* * *

The gray mists of an early autumn morning lay like silken shrouds above the beautiful valley of the Assiniboine river at a point not far southwest of old Fort Gary, (in what is now Manitoba, Canada), when, in 1866, a youth of 17 years, broke camp at the edge of a slightly elevated woodland.

Born of a good family, well educated and fond of reading , this boy, having developed a desire for an active life, had set out for the great frontier, there to mould his future in the cast of a wild, new country.

Here was “the frontier.” As the lad gazed out across the valley of that tributary of the great Red River of the North, he could see no sign of human activity - nothing save the countless wild fowl that wheeled and nested in the marshes, feeding on wild rice and celery. Ahead lay an endless sea of waving grass through which wound the wooded stream. To the north, over the rolling divide, were unknown expanses of a partially explored Hudson’s Bay country. Across the river, and to the southwest, swept the limitless plains, dark with buffalo herds - the home of the native redman. It was to this latter country that an inbred spirit of adventure was beckoning this youth.

With the *Bois Brules

As he neared the rough trail which led to one of the river’s crossings, the silence was broken by the weird creaking peculiar alone to the early day Red River carts. Soon he found himself in company with a party of and bound for the buffalo plains, there to hunt the game and prepare their year’s supply of pemmican. The youth was glad, for this afforded him company and a guide to the country in which he hoped to find his place; where might be those conditions which would satisfy his desire to become a “free lance” of the plains. This lad was none other than the famous Luther S. Kelly - more familiarly known in later years as “Yellowstone” Kelly - a more typical frontiersman than whom never stalked a buffalo, baited a beaver trap or guided a frontier battalion against the hostile native tribes.

Today, drawing close to the fourscore mark, Kelly resides at Paradise, Calif., on a little farm that he purchased a number of years ago, rounding out the declining years of a long, adventurous life, in peaceful contract to the stirring events that he witnessed on the plains of eastern Montana a half a century ago. During these later years the veteran scout has found time to write his memoirs. These, recently published by the Yale University Press, constitute an intensely interesting narrative.

He was the perfect type of plainsman, this “Yellowstone” Kelly, in whose appearance and general makeup were combined the picturesque habits of the early-day trapper and hunter with the reserved manner and cool daring that marked the best type of frontiersman.

Enlists in Union Army

Kelly was born at Geneva, N. Y., and very early in life evinced a desire for a life of adventure. The first step in this direction was taken at the age of 14 years, when, despite his youth, he contrived to enlist in the Union army, fighting through the last year of the Civil war, and marching with his regiment in the grand parade at Washington, in 1865.
At the close of the war, Kelly’s regiment was ordered to Minnesota, and, in 1866, relieved the garrison of Minnesota volunteers at Fort Wadsworth, Dakotah. It was here that the boy was given his honorable discharge from the service. Then close to the edge of a country he longed to penetrate, his first impulse was to visit the Hudson’s Bay company trading post at old Fort Gary, (Canada). It was on the return trip from this post, that he found the “real frontier” opening up to him in firsthand experience and adventure.

Crossing the Assiniboine, Kelly was pleased to cast his lot with these “free people” of Canada, the *Metis or Bois Brules.
“With my blue coat and red sash,” he writes, “I felt more like a free lance of the prairie, especially while with those half-breed buffalo hunters, who made the prairie their home a good part of the year. The carts were made wholly of wood, and not a single nail or bolt entered into their construction. The rims of the high wheels were covered with strips of raw bull’s hide, laced on while green making very effective tires, hard and durable as iron, and so light that the carts would float while the ponies swam across the streams.

Meets Sitting Bull

It was while Kelly was traveling south and west, across the international boundary line into Dakotah Territory with these half-breeds, that the young man experienced some of the thrilling incidents of his early career in the West.

One of these numerous adventures was a meeting with Sitting Bull, who was then becoming prominent among the Sioux as a Medicine man and military leader. This meeting is graphically described by Kelly in his recently published memoirs.

“It was while on the Mouse river, relates Kelly, “that I first came in contact with Sitting Bull and his war party. As we were going into camp one day, a party of horsemen suddenly appeared. Approaching rapidly, they dismounted and went through our party shaking hands, using both hands in the process, which struck me as singular in an Indian. In our party were a man and woman of the Santee Sioux. Of course they told Sitting Bull that I was an American, and the warriors gathered around me where I stood with my rifle in hand. The old man with whom I messed had assured me that though we might meet hostile Indians I would come to no harm as long as I stayed with the party, so I looked them calmly in the eye while they thronged around me, regarding me with baleful eyes, hate and vindictiveness pervading every feature of their villainous faces. Without a word, they abruptly left me, and, mounting their horses, soon passed out of sight.

“Sitting Bull appeared to be about 30 years old. He had a round, pleasant face, and wore a hand-scarf of dirty white cloth, while most of his followers affected black headgear. I suspected that the stiff leather cases tied to some of the saddles contained war bonnets, as I saw feathers sticking out of the pouches. They assume their war regalia when on the warpath, though they usually strip to the breechcloth when going in to action. They were armed with rifles and trade shotguns in addition to the usual bow and quiver of arrows. They reported killing a white man a short time before near the mouth of the Yellowstone.”

Makes His Way to Fort Buford

Many weeks were spent in company with this party of half-breeds, the youth helping them in their hunts, and ever alert to gain all available knowledge of the ways of the plains people. Finally, he started westward alone into and through a wild and hostile-infested country, arriving in remarkably short time at Fort Berthold, then Indian agency for the Arikaras, Mandans and Gros Ventres. Remaining here but long enough to gain some knowledge of the customs of the redmen, as well as the nature of the country through which he must pass in his further westward trek, the lad proceeded into the domain of the Sioux, headed for Fort Buford (on the Montana-Dakota line). The appearance there of so youthful a solitary traveler, caused somewhat of a sensation, for, although he was then 17 years of age, he was, in appearance, much younger. In fact, he could not convince the post trader that he was older than 14 or 15 years. He was made welcome at Fort Buford by the corps of trappers, traders troopers and the other habitues of the post. Quiet, and retiring, he might easily have been taken for a timid boy who was very much out of place in a wild country where danger and even death lurked unceasingly at every man’s elbow.

The Powerful and Hostile Sioux

At the time of young “Yellowstone” Kelly’s arrival at Fort Buford, the Sioux nation of Indians, flushed with their success at ridding the territory adjacent to Fort Phil Kearney, Wyoming, of white invaders, were arrogant and exceedingly hostile to all whites. The country about Fort Buford was filled with these Indians who were conducting an incessant guerilla warfare on trappers and traders who operated along the Missouri. The situation had become so grave along the trail that led from Fort Buford to the next army post down the river - Fort Stevenson - that it was necessary to send an escort of cavalry with the mail between the forts.

*The Bois Brules (or Metis) were a race born of the fur trade, according to Grace Flandran, in “Red River Trails”, and in whose veins the blood of French Orkney Islanders and English mingled with every Indian race from the lower St. Lawrence to the Arctic sea and from the Sioux de Sainte Marie to the eastern slope of the Rockies. They were often termed the “Gypsies of the North,” and were always on good terms with the red race.
Their customs were patterned much after those of the red natives of the plains.

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