The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke Volume 4: July 3, 1880--May 22, 1881

20. Among the Zunis

397 Chapter 20 ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Among the Zunis M ay 11th 1881. Recd. a very pleasant personal letter from Lieut. General Sheridan, in reference to the prosecution of my work under his orders. Bade adieu to Genl. Crook, Roberts, Williams, Ludington, Col. & Cap’t. Stanton, Col. Burnham, Genl. King, the Bachelor’s Mess. (Foote, Palmer, Lee’s, Hay.) and started for Santa Fé. Passing through town saw several of my best friends and on the train met numerous pleasant acquaintances whose society as far as Cheyenne served to make time fly with rapidity . These were Mr. Vining of the Union Pacific, S. S. Stevens of the Rock Island, Lt. Reynolds, 3rd Cavy., Mr. Rustin of the Omaha Smelting Works and his young son, Mr. Barklow of Omaha, Drs. Coffman and Mercer and Mr. Congdon, of the U.P.R.R. and his son.1 The last four were proceeding hurriedly to North Platte to attend to Mr. Congdon’s nephew, who has met with a serious accident, involving a strangulated hernia which they feared might end fatally. Lt. Reynolds was returning to Regimental Hd. Qrs. Fort Russell, Wyo., from the wedding of Cap’t. [Charles A. H.] McCauley, A.Q.M. Besides the above we had in our two sleepers the Raymond Theatrical Company, 1. Congdon was superintendent of Union Pacific’s Omaha shops, which Bourke described in detail in an earlier entry. See Robinson, Diaries, 3:282–83. 398 The Bureau of Ethnology thus representing all moods, sentiments and interests. Mr. Vining who has utilized every moment of his leisure in hard studies in philology interested me immensely by his conversation upon the subject of Indian dialects from which I drew many hints for future use. The weather which for the past week had been sultry and unpleasant to a degree, culminated this afternoon in a violent storm of hail & rain, the effect of which was delightful in the coolness of the evening air enabling us to enjoy the scenery of the picturesque valley of the Platte, green with the interminable fertility of Nebraska. May 12th 1881. Morning bright, cool and fair, excepting a few broken masses of cloud, reminders of yesterday’s storm. At Sidney, Neb., met Col. [William Thomas] Gentry, 9th Inf’y, [George Frederick] Price, [Emil] Adam and [Henry De Hart] Wait, 5th Cavalry. Mr. Stevens, Mr. and Mrs. Vining, and Mr. Barklow, kept on with me to Denver where we separated, they going to the Windsor an I to Charpiots, an excellent hotel. May 13th 1881. Took 8 a.m. Denver and Rio Grande train for Pueblo. A long file of impatient ticket-buyers waited behind a woman who was employing a good deal of useless energy in the effort to have a couple of extra trunks passed to her destination without paying for them. The ticket-agent was deaf to all persuasion, but she remained at her post, trying our patience to the utmost. Miracles sometimes happen; that woman’s jaw became tired and we had a chance to buy our tickets. We had a lovely day; the temperature was warm without any approach to undue heat, the sky clear as sapphire, and the scenery lovely to look upon. Fields and hills were covered with rich green, the trees were in full foliage and back of all in the Western horizon rose the blue and gray line of the Rocky-Mountains, the higher peaks still retaining their bridal purity of white. Lt. [James] Erwin, 4th Cavy. was a fellow passenger as far as Pueblo, where I found 4 cos. of the 4th Cavy. & 3 of the 6th Infy. all moving out to the Uncompahgre Ute Agency in Southern Colorado. I knew only a few of the officers—in fact, I think, only one—[Capt. Theodore Jonathan] Wint of the 4th , whom I met in Kansas City, Mo. when I was a member of a Horse Board last year.2 The last time I passed through Pueblo, (April 1881.) I spoke of the great improvements noticed; I forgot to say that it has a street car line and several brick-yards, and bids 2. See Ibid., Vol. 3, Chapters 18 and 20. Among the Zunis 399 strongly to become in a few years more a dangerous rival of Denver. The American element is changing everything with the rapidity of lightning; yet, I observed a half dozen Mexican women washing linen in an acequia, in the good old fashioned way...