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He discoursed with and animated his companions, selected 190 of the best armed, and disposed, and, with a thousand Indians of labor, a few bloodhounds, and sufficient provisions, took his way by the sierras toward the dominion of Ponca.
The chieftain's daughter, a young maiden of much personal beauty, then appeared before the stern foe, dressed with exquisite taste, and bearing the calumet. Blackbird's heart softened, he accepted the sacred emblem, and concluded a peace with his enemy. The pledge given and received was the beautiful Ponca maiden, as wife to the fierce chieftain of Omaha.
Ponca, not daring to await the coming of the allies, took refuge in the mountains, abandoning his land to the ravage and ruin prepared for it by the Indians and Spaniards.
The other took it in sign of friendship, and demanded in the Osage language whether he was a Big Knife, or American. He answered in the affirmative, and inquired whether the other were a Sioux. To his great relief he found that he was a Ponca. By his time two other Indians came running up, and all three laid hold of Mr.
The Ponca Indians were members of the large Siouan family. They had not always been a separate tribe. In the old days they and the Omahas and the Kansas and the Osages had lived together as Omahas, near the mouth of the Osage River in eastern Nebraska. Soon they divided, and held their clan names of Poncas, Omahas, Kansas and Osages. The Poncas and Omahas clung as allies.
The district was, by these examples, rendered so pacific and so submissive that Balboa left all his sick there, dismissed the guides given him by Ponca, and, taking fresh ones, pursued his road over the heights. The tongue of land which divides the two Americas is not, at its utmost width, above eighteen leagues, and in some parts becomes narrowed a little more than seven.
He did not sleep, by thinking that his son's bones must lie here in this unfriendly country. His medicine demanded that the boy should rest with their ancestors, in the Ponca ground along the dear Niobrara. Therefore, in January, 1879, he placed the bones in a sack, and tied the sack to his neck, and taking his people who could travel, he set out to walk to Ponca land. That was hard work.
Among the men to be specially mentioned are James J. McGraw of Ponca City, member of the National Republican Committee; Tom Wade of Marlow, member of the National Democratic Committee; George L. Bowman of Kingfisher, Alger Melton of Chickasha, Colonel E. M. McPherron of Durant and Bird McGuire of Tulsa.
Balboa then returned to the Darien, rich in the spoils of Ponca, rich in the presents of his friends, and still richer in the golden hopes which the future offered him. At this time, and after an absence of six months, arrived the magistrate Valdivia, with a vessel laden with different stores; he brought likewise great promises of abundant aid in provisions and men.
"Oh, I don't know," said Bud quietly, as Sol Flatbush made this announcement of the ability of Magpie, or Idlewild, as he was known elsewhere. "But I do," urged Sol. "I see that hoss run at Ponca City on ther Fo'th o' July a year ago, an' he jest run away from ther best Indian racers what ther Osages could bring over, an' yer knows they kin go some." "Sol, my son, don't git excited.
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