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The  Finest  View  of  Old  Fort  Berthold. 

[From  the  Morrow  Collection,  Taken  in  1870.] 

Indian  \HUngc--A  partial  \Hetu  oi  ittan 
ban  nnd  Ariearec  (Quarter^ 


KALEIDOSCOPIC 
LIVES, 


COMPANION  BOOK  TO 

FRONTIER /INDIAN 


BY 

JOSEPH  HENRY  Tlfl.OR, 

Author  of  "Frontier  and  Indian  Life,"  Etc. 


I  Illustrated* 


^  Second  Edition,  g^r 

WASHBURN,  N.  D. 

Printed,  and  Published  by  the  Author. 

1902. 


COPYRIGHTED,  1896,  1901, 

-by- 

JOSEPH    HENRY    TAYLOR. 


PREFACE. 

Although  complete  in  itself,  yet  as  its  sub-title  indi- 
cates, this  little  book  is  but  a  continuation  of  and  com- 
panion to    "Sketches    of  Frontier  and  Indian  Life    on 
the  Upper  Missouri  and  Great  Plains"  a    collection    of 
historical  incidents,  reminiscences  and  personal  recollec- 
tions of  the  free  wild  life  in  the  regions  named ;  a  work 
put  forth  by  the  author  many  years  ago,  and  now  run- 
ning to  the  close  of  its  third  edition.     This  companion 
volume    of   sketches   though    bordering  romance  in  the 
•  manner  of  presentation  of  some  of  the  characters  and  of 
«-   their  doings  as  herein  chronicled,  are— as  were  those  of 
c=  the  preceding  book — but  a  plain  record  of  the  actual. 

The  actors  in  the  cast  of  these    stirring  dramas  were 

1^  of  both  the  red  and  white  race,  from  diverse  tribes  and 

Sk  nationalities.     They  were  of  those  who  make  their  own 

r  ideal  as  to  character  with  more  originality  and  less  of  the 

imitative    which  render  companionable  the  greater  mass 

of  the  human  kind. 

I  write  of  scenes  that  cannot  be  re-enacted  and  will 
never  be  duplicated  for  the  conditions  do  not  now  exist 
that  brought  them  forth.  I  write  of  an  individualism 
that  could  only  have  sprang  from  such  conditions  and 
surroundings,  and  with  such  disappearance,  all  have 
now  passed  or  are  passing  on  with  time's  eternal  transit, 
leaving  but  imperfect  records  behind  to  mark  their  time 
and  stage  of  action.  the  author. 


286241 


COXTKXTS. 


The  Opening  Sketch 5 

On  Diverging  I -inks 20 

A  Chronicle  of  Dog  Den  Range is 

Blazing  a  Backward  Trail 66 

Of  Two  Graves  in  the  Black  Hills 78 

The  Bismarck  Penitentiary 90 

From  We>t  to  East 98 

Little  P»kak  Woman 108 

The  Two  Strangers 114 

I   HI1.I-'  OP   THE    StRANGLERS 121 

Where  the  Spotted  Otter  Play 134 

Bloody  Knife  and  Gall 143 

A  Romantic  Encounter 160 

The  Closing  Stoky 182 


LIS  i  Or  ILLUSTRATIONS. 
Indian  Village  at  Fori  Berthol.1   -   Frontispiece. 

'.'  -i^ing  Pa  {re 

Guinea  Station,  Virgin'a      -  -5 

One  of  Keenan's  Troopers  8 
Painted  Woods  Lake          -        -           -          -13 

Aricaree  Village  Near  Rces  Own  River         -  20 

Ljng  Soldier,  Uncpapa  Chief        -        -        -  .  4 

La-ton-ga,-sha        -                                   -        -  28 

A  Frontier  Home        -                           -  48 

Issuing  Rations  to  the  Fort  Berthold  Indians  C6 

Sluggish  waters  of  Douglas  River          -          -  78 

Dan  Williams        ------  90 

Indian  Village   at   Fort   Berthold — Mandan 

and  Gros  Ventre  quarter        -         -  '.8 

Bad  Lands  near  old  Fort  Berthold        -        -  108 

Little  Bear  Woman      -          -        -        -        -  112 

A  Sioux  Indian  Village  on  Yellowstone  River  1 18 

Joseph  Dietrich         -         -         -          -          -  121 

William  Cantrell — Flopping  Bill          -          -  131 

The  Square  Buttes        -         -        -        -        -  134 

Bone  Monument  at  Custer's  Last  Stand        -  142 

Chief  Gall        -          -            -                 -         -  148 

Fort  Clark        - 148 

Gros  Ventre  Village  on  Knife  River    -         -  155 

Little  Big  Horn  River         -         -         -         -  157 
Scene   of   Encounter  between   Sioux   and 

Aricarees  near  Washburn,  N.  D.         -  -  1(>1 

Son  of  the  Star 206 


I'. .it  Benton  in  1870         -                    -  -  168 

Spotted  Tail.  Witf  ami  Daughter  -  1(>5 

Okoos-tericks  and  Friends         -           -  -  17)! 

Indian  Burial  Ground  on  Upper  Missouri  -  182 

The  Snake    A  Ponca  Warrior       -      -  -  187 

Iron  Bull    ('hid' of  Crow  Nation         -  -  195 

Long  Dog     Bandit  Chief         -          -  -  199 

Cheyenne  Village  on  Rosebud  River      -  -  205 

Not*  In  the  summer  of  l^T".  s. .).  Morrow,  a  photographer 
trom  Yankton.  S.  It.,  ascended  the  Missouri  river  by  steamboat, 
taking  along  a  i\~>  earners  and  made  use  ol  it  by  getting  some 
line,  even  though  limited  views  of  the  Indian  village  at  Fort  Ber- 
thold  and  other  historic  places  and  scenes,  also  some  excellent 
phot  «  '  t  prominent  Indian  chiefs  and  head  men  of  that  period. 
These  were  the  lirst  photograpic  views  of  the  last  among 
the  hundreds  of  villages  of  this  character  that  at  one  time  or 
another  were  dotted  along  the  banks  of  the  I'pper  Missouri. 
On  the  photographer's  return  to  his  gallery,  he  printed  off  anl 
disposed  of  a  tew  of  his  pictures,  when  by  accident  his  negatives 
were  destroyed.  After  many  years  of  diligent  tracing,  tlie  au- 
thor of  these  companion  volumes,  with  the  assistance  of  L.  W. 
I  ase,  K.  M.  Zeihach,  Isaac  Watterbury  and  other  good  citizens  of 
Yankton,  a  search  was  made  among  their  albums  and  book 
8  lelves  and  garrets,  with  the  result  which  now  appears  in  this 
and  its  companion  book ''Frontier  and  Indian  Life."  It  is  over 
15  years  Bince  Berthold  village  was  destroyed  and  its  inhabitants 
scattered  and  now  not  a  trace  of  its  existanee  save  uneven  sur- 
face mark  the  site  of  this  i  nee  noted  Indian  town.  Photograph- 
er- 1  ><  <  •  raff,  Harry,  and  ('.  M.  Diesen  also  contribute  views  of 
a  more  recent  date,  for  these  volumes. 


hH        W 


THE  OPENING  SKETCH. 

ON  the  5th  day  of  May  I863,  under  a  Virginia 
sun  warm  and  sultry,  some  three  hundred 
of  us  blue  coats  stood  huddled  in  groups  under 
the  shifting  shades  of  a  clump  of  pine  trees  on  the 
line  of  the  Fredericksburg  and  Richmond  road, 
and  but  a  few  miles  south  of  the  first  named  town. 
We  were  garnered  trophies  of  the  victorious  south- 
erners, and  had  yielded  up  our  guns  at  the  various 
stages  of  the  conflict  the  past  seven  days  around 
the  Chancellorsville  House,  or  down  the  pike 
about  Salem  church. 

While  most  of  the  prisoners  were  from  infantry 
regiments,  a  few  artillerists  and  some  cavalrymen 
were  among  these  vanquished  men  of  arms.  Of 
the  cavalrymen  here, — perhaps  a  dozen  in  all — 
some  were  members  of  the  Eighth  Pennsylvania, 
once  known  as  Chormann's   Mounted  Riflemen. 

In  the  retrospect  regimental,  this  body  of  men 
had  been  recruited  with  a  partial  promise  of  west- 
ern service,  but  once  organized  and  ready  for  bus- 
iness its  organizer  and  promoter  was  quietly  and 
effectually  shelved  and  Colonel  Gregg — a  West 
Pointer  entrusted  with  the  command.  The  green 
stripes  of  the  rifles  gave  way  for  the  yellow,    and 


kai.mx >soopie  u\  i:s 

thus  went  forth  this  command  winning  fame  for 
service  and  hard  work,  Firsi  with  McClellan 
on  the  Virginia  Peninsula;  taking  the  advance  ai 
Williamsburg;  running  the  artillery  gauntlet  at 
om's  bridge  on  the  Chickahomin^;  sustaining 
Couch  and  Casey  ai  Fair  <  >aks,  and  taking  active 
j<an  in  the  culminating  crisis  ol  the  seven  days 
battles  in  front  of  the  Confederate  capital  and  die 
retreat  tp  Harrison's  landing  and  down  the  |am<  s. 
n  again  with  McClellan  in  the  Maryland  cam- 
m,  and  after  the  Southerners'  defeal  at  Antie- 
tam,  under  the  lead  of  level-headed  Pleasanton, 
the  methodical  Gregg  and  the  dashing  Keenan, 
supporte  I  and  assisted  b)  the  8th  Illinois  cavalry, 
and  two  squadrons  of  the  3rd  Indiana  horse,  took 
up  the  pursuit  ol  Lee's  broken  hosts  from  the 
reddened  waters  of  Antietam  creek,  across  Dam 
No.  40a  the  swift  flowing  Potomac  and  over  the 
mountain  ridges  and  through  Ashby's  Gap  on 
down  to  the  green  d  >tte  1  hills  of  the  serpentine 
Rappahannock  stream.  Such  was  the  regimental 
summary  up  to  the  events  of  Fredericksburg  and 
Chancellorsville.  After  that  came  Gettysburg, 
hut  with  new  recruits  and  without  its  Keenan,  the 
once  noted  regiment  followed  more  restful  lines. 
Some  of  this  cavalry  group  had  been  unhorsed 
in  Major  Keenan's  charge  down  the  Gordonsville 
plank  road  in  which  with  scarcely  more-  than  three 
hundred  cavalrymen  made  the  mad  charge  against 
Jackson's  flanking  division  numbering  near  twenty 
thousand  veterans,  in  order  to  gain  ten  minutes 
precious  time,    which    enabled    Gen,  Pleasanton's 


THE  OPENING  SKETCH.-  7 

battery  of  Hying  artillery  to  take  position,  unlim- 
ber  their  guns  and  thus  rescue  Hooker's  army 
of  over  one  hundred  thousand  men  from  panic  and 
total  rout,  as  was  McDowell's  legions  at  the  first 
Bull  Run.  Facing  [ackson's  solid  columns,  Kee- 
nan  and  many  of  his  men  became  a  sacrifice  and 
all  would  soon  have  been  but  for  the  timely  ''right 
about"  of  Major  Hughey — second  in  command. 

The  desperate  dash  had  accomplished  all  that 
was  asked  or  expected — and  much  more — it  had 
disconcerted  Jackson's  well  conceived  plans  and 
which  led  directly  to  his  death.  While  the  South- 
erners slew  a  Patroclus  the  Unionists  had  bore 
down  their  girded  Hector. 

A  -part  of  the  cavalry  group—  the  writer  among 
the  number — alter  the  charge  on  the  plank  road, 
had  been  ordered  to  recross  the  Rappahannock 
at  Bank's  Ford,  move  out  toward  Salem  church 
as  a  diversion  covering  safety  in  Sedgwick's  re- 
treat to  the  north  bank.  The  move  was  by  moon- 
light— full  faced  with  a  cloudless  sky.  A  foe  in 
ambush  with  an  inrladincr  fire  on  the  rear  pfuard; 
a  miss  of  the  ford  and  the  woods  full  of  Georgians 
left  but  little  choice  between  a  well  punctured 
Federal  or  in  swelling  the  prisoners  ranks  along 
the  Richmond  road.  Thus  it  was,  a  small  rear 
guard  of  the  black  horse  company  became  pris- 
oners of  war. 

Over  in  front  of  our  guarded  cordon  stood  the 
little  isolated  Guinea  Station,  with  its  bleak  and 
cheerless  view,  where  were  ranged  a  few  hospital 
tents  pitched  among  stumps  and  mud,   arid    some 


K  A  I. I'll  D(  >SOOPIC  LIVES. 

grey  c  lated  officers  and  soldiers  loitering  around 
in  respectful  silence,  for  beneath  the  station's  de- 
caying root  and  within  its  four  dingy  walls,  Stone- 
wall Jackson,  the  great  southern  chieftain  la\ 
dying. 

Whether  for  good  or  whether  for  ill,  the  scribe 
ol  these  pages  as  a  member  of,  and  the  first  en- 
rolled soldier  of  the  West  Chester  Rifles,  it  being 
among  the  all-ready  companies  qtiick  to  respond 
t  i  President  Lincoln's  first  call  after  I'ort  Sumter 
had  fallen,  and  tinder  plain  Ben  Sweeney  as  cap 
taiii,  were  assigned  to  the  Second  Pennsylvania 
infantry,  Col.  Staumbaugh  in  command,  was  at 
the  fight  at  Falling  Waters  near  Martinsburg,  in 
June.  [36i,  in  which  Jackson's  brigade  of  Vir- 
ginians faced  the  van  guard  of  Patterson's  army, 
and  with  the  exception  of  his  fight  with  Shields  in 
the  Shenandoah  and  the  Harper's  Ferry  surren- 
der; had  been  among  the  opposing  forces  to 
this  famed  warrior  in  every  general  encounter 
from  the  Martinsburg  pike  June  17th,  1861,  to  the 
rising  of  the  moon  above  the  scrub  pines  along 
the  Gordon ville  plank  road  May  2nd,  1863.  In 
other  words — as  to  the  American  civil  war — I  was 
in  Jackson's  first  fight  and  in  Jackson's  last  battle. 

And  yet,  within  a  few  miles  of  our  prison  quar- 
ters but  three  days  since,  this  strangely  gifted 
and  now  dying  soldier  had  won  his  most  brilliant 
of  his  many  military  triumphs,  the  disasterous 
repulse  to  Hooker's  magnificantly  equipped  army 
at  the  Chancellorsville  House.  But  now  on  the 
pinnacle  of  his  fame,  and  in  the  hour  of  his  parti- 


One  of  Keenan's  Trooper's. 


THE  OPENING  SKETCH.  9 

sans  direst  needs,  he  had  been  cut  down  by  un- 
guarded sentinels  of  his  own  Division,  and  what 
would  seem  more  strange — by  pickets  of  his  own 
posting. 

While  on  his  bed  of  pain  and  in  the  shadow  of 
death,  we,  victims  of  his  prowess  and  prisoners  of 
war,  felt  a  common  sorrow  with  our  captors  over 
the  tragic  end  o(  this  remarkable  man. 

Having  contracted  an  illness  after  the  past 
week's  exposure,  I  applied  to  the  officer  of  the 
guard  for  medical  treatment,  when  a  hospital  stew- 
ard of  a  Mississippi  regiment—  the  1 8th,  I  think  it 
was — came  up  and  gave  the  desired  medicine. 
He  was  a  tall,  well  formed,  gentlemanly  appear- 
ing kind  of  a  man,  about  thirty  years  of  age.  He 
seemed  of  an  inquiring  nature,  asking  many  ques- 
tions about  Hooker's  army  and  of  the  North,  As 
he  turned  t<>  go  to  other  duties,  he  raised  a  hand 
and  pointing  his  index  finger  toward  the  Station, 
said  hurriedly: 

"If  Stonewall  dies  over  there,  our  luck's  run 
down  and  1  am  going  to  get  out  of  this." 

The  next  morning  the  captain  of  our  guard — 
6 ist  Georgia  regiment — bawled  out  facetiously: 

Attention!  Yanks!  On  to  Richmond,  for- 
ward march!" 

And  thus  our  weary  foot  journey  to  a  Southern 
prison  pen  commenced.  It  ended  at  Castle 
Thunder,  the  Libby  and  Belle  Isle;  then  a  prison- 
er on  parole,  but  to  some  of  the  party — Ander- 
sonville,  starvation  and  death. 

As  we   passed    along    through    the    sweltering 


KA.LEIDQ300PIC    LIVES. 

streets  ol  Richmond,  ihe  proud  capital  was  draped 
in  deep  mourning.  I  lie  flags  were  lowered  from 
their  mastheads;  the  public  buildings  as  well  as 
private  dwellings  were  lined  with  crape.  They  all 
bent  in  sorrow  lor  the  one  man  whose  loss  was  ol 
more  moment  t<>  them  than  the  destruction  ol 
one  of  their  great  armies;  the  fleeting  years  has 
told  us  that  was  even  more  disasterous  to  the 
combative  Southern — the  beginning  of  the  end  of 
the  Confederacy  itself. 

In  the  month  of  February,  1864,  1  was  stopping 
at  a  Platte  river  ranch,  in  central  Nebraska,  nurs- 
ing a  pair  of  frozen  feet,  the  result  of  exposure 
in  my  first  experience  in  a  blizzard  on  the  plains. 

Being  casually  informed  one  day  by  my  kind 
and  obliging  hostess  that  a  newcomer  at  a  neigh- 
boring ranch  down  the  trail  was  doing  some  won- 
ders in  the  medical  and  healing  art — a  kind  of  a 
doctor,  she  heard  her  neighbors  say — and  advised 
my  seeing  him.  Acting  promptly  on  the  informa- 
tion I  hobbled  down  to  the  place,  and  after  being 
admitted  to  the  new  doctor's  presence,  found  to 
my  surprise  that  the  gentleman  before  me  was  no 
other  than  my  quondam  acquaintance,  the  hospital 
steward  of  Guinea  Station,  Virginia. 

He  gave  my  case  attention,  would  have  no  re- 
numeration,  but  in  course  of  conversation,  finding 
that  I  would  soon  pass  up  the  trail  through  Colum- 
bus, on  the  Loup,  asked  as  a  special  favor  that  I 
deliver  a  letter  in  person,  and  in  case  of  her  ques- 
tioning, a  guarded  verbal  message   to    a    lady    in 


THE  OPENING  SKETCH.  11 

the  village. 

He  would  leave,  he  said,  in  a  day  or  two  by  the 
Ben  Halloday  stage  line  on  the  overland  route  to 
Denver,  Colorado,  or  might  possibly  go  on  to  the 
City  of  the  Saints.  In  any  event,  the  letter  or 
message  was  not  to  be  delivered  until  previously 
notified  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  the  mountains. 

About  the  time  agreed  upon.  I  delivered  the 
message  as  was  pledged.  But,  beforetime,  on 
inquiry  among  some  of  the  gossipy  denizens  of 
the  village,  1  found  that  the  lady  in  question  was 
something  of  a  mystery  to  them.  She  was  reticent, 
avofded  social  calls  or  visits,  and  seemed  to  shun 
publicity  in  any  manner.  But  the  ever  prying 
and  restless  searchers  after  the  sensational  had  lo- 
cated her  previous  residence  at  the  Mormon  capi- 
tal on  the  Great  Salt  Lake,  and  that  she  was  the 
wife  of  an  officer  of  some  rank  in  the  Confederate 
army. 

I  found  on  presentation,  that  she  was  a  fair  ap- 
pearing young  woman  of  twenty-five  or  there- 
about, v\uh  a  mild  mannered  countenance  of  a 
somewhat  saddened  cast.  I  gave  her  the  letter 
to  read,  and  remained  standing  near  the  door,  hat 
in  hand.  She  read  the  missive  without  any  pre- 
ceptible  change  of  countenance. 

"Please  describe  the  gentleman  who  gave  you 
this?"  she  asked,  rising  from  her  chair  and  facing 
me  calmly,  with  the  missive  in  hand. 

I  did  as  requested,  but  with  caution  and  no  su- 
perfluous words,  and  I  noticed  a  crimsom  flow  mo- 
mentarily chase  the  pallor  from  her  cheeks.     Alter 


12  KALEIDOSCOPIC    LIVES, 

a  short  silence,  she  said  with  something  ol  a   pas- 
sing tremor  in  her  v  oice; 

■•  This  letter  tells  me  my  husband  is  dead.  Your 
description  of  the  one  who  sent  this,  tells  me  he 
is  living." 

After  a  few  more  hurried  questions  and  answers, 
1  1  H>wed  myself  from  her  presence  and  saw  her  no 
mon 

In  August  of  that  same  year,  while  on  an  over- 
land journey  from  Nebraska  City,  on  the  Missouri 
river  by  way  of  the  Platte  river.  Pike's  Peak  and 
tributaries  of  the  Upper  Arkansas,  to  Fort  Union, 
New  Mexico,  we  made  a  noon  camp  on  the  plum 
studded  banks  of  the  river  Huerfano,  and  within 
the  shade  almost  of  the  naked  summits  of  the 
Spanish  Peaks — those  twin  cloud-reachers  that 
over-look  the  surrounding  mountainous  chain. 

Here,  again,  in  the  predestined  line,  or  by  plain 
chance,  my  Doctor  friend  once  more  came  to  view. 
He  was  jogging  along,  with  a  work-my-passage 
air  on  the  back  of  a  little  Mexican  jack  and  club- 
bing two  others  ahead  of  him  as  packs;  was  clothed 
in  a  gaudy  suit  of  fringed  buckskin;  a  handsome 
display  of  armoral  equipments,  boots,  spurs  and 
a  broand  sombrero  that  did  duty  as  hat,  umbrella 
and  in  folicksome  windstorms  cut  the  antics  of  a 
kite.  He  said  he  had  just  came  up  from  a  re-pro- 
vision trip  on  the  Arkansas  river  at  Boone's  old 
trading  post. 

In  reply  to  my  further  questioning,  answered 
that  he  had  turned  prospector — or  rather  resumed 


THE  OPENING  SKETCH.  13 

that  facinating  calling — having  some  experience 
before  the  war,  in  Utah  and  Nevada,  and  thought 
now  to  develop  his  luck  around  the  Peaks;  the 
gulches  of  the  Greenhorn,  and  possibly  over  the 
Fort  Garland  way.  A  recent  trip  in  that  direc- 
tion, brought  him  some  gold,  with  color  enough 
for  good  prospects. 

He,  lately,  he  furthermore  said,  had  some  little 
trouble,  hereabout  in  convincing  the  military 
authorities,  and  some  civilians  as  well,  that  he  was 
not  surgeon-general  in  Reynold's  army  ot  Colo- 
rado insurgents,  that  had  just  been  captured  up 
the  Arkansas  above  Canon  City,  by  a  part  of  Col. 
Chivington's  command.  But  now  as  about  all 
were  dead  who  participated  in  that  disasterous  at- 
tempt to  help  the  dying  Confederacy  at  the  ex- 
pense of  Colorado's  peace,  he  had  nothing  further 
to  fear  save  now  and  then  a  threatened  raid  from 
the  red  Kiowas  and  Comanches. 

Our  train  rolled  out  of  the  valley  to  the  sun- 
heated  sands  of  the  table  lands,  leaving  the  cheer- 
ful miner  in  solitary  camp  near  the  fording.  He 
seemed  busy  over  a  camp  fire  with  his  culinary 
affairs,  and  the  tired,  hungry  looking  pack  don- 
keys browsing  by  the  hill  side.  That  interview 
was  the  last  as  far  as  we  were  a  party,  for  the 
Doctor  and  I  never  met  again. 

One  night  in  August,  1872,  while  at  my  then 
home  at  Painted  Woods,  northern  Dakota,  I  was 
awakened  from  a  sound  sleep  by  a  loud  "hello" 
from  the  prairie.     It  was  from  the  throat  of  a  be- 


M  KALEIDOSCOPIC    LIVES. 

vvildertd  dispatch  carrier,    who,    in    coming    from 

Camp  Hancock  on  his  way  to  Fort  Stevenson, 
had  missed  the  trail  in  the  darkness,  and  was  wan- 
dering aimlessly  and  hopelessly  about  yelling  to 
the  night  gods  for  inspiration  and  guidance.  After 
locating  his  distressful  sounds,  I  answered  him, 
when  he  begged  me  to  relieve  him  of  the  military 
dispatch  and  take  it  to  its  destination.  I  had  al- 
ready taken  a  good  nap;  had  a  fresh,  well  (a\  pony 
at  hand,  and,  as  by  contract,  the  message  must  be 
delivered  to  the  commanding  officer  by  sunrise*, 
saddled,  bridled  and  mounted,  and  pulled  out  for 
the  long,  lonesome,  fifty  mile  ride. 

At  the  break  of  day,  1  had  reached  the  big  hill, 
— the  place  where  the  town  of  Coal  Harbor  now 
crowns  the  apex — and  in  passing  along  the  trail 
through  the  coulee  beyond,  my  ears  caught  the 
sounds  of  clattering  hoofs  drawing  down  toward 
me.  As  the  approaching  phantom  seemed  omin- 
ous, and  thinking  perhaps  it  was  a  red  man  with  a 
'bad  heart,"  —  an  always  possibility  around  there 
in  those  days — I  cocked  my  rifle,  and  also  heard  a 
counter  click  at  almost  the  same  instant. 

"White  or  red,"  I  bellowed  nervously. 

"White,"  came  the  ready  answer,  and  in  an  in- 
stant later  a  great  burly,  bushy-bearded  fellow 
was  by  my  side. 

•Well  you  want  m>  credentials  I  suppose,"  he 
said  in  a  loud  course  voice,  "and  here  you  have  it. 
I  am  Mountain  lim  of  Arizona.  My  habits  are 
goosish — north  in  summer,  south  in  winter.  I 
have  summered  over  on  the  British  boundary  and 


THE  OPENING  SKETCH.  15 

am  now  bound  for  the  Rio  Grande.      Now,    pard 
for  yours." 

Well,  as  time  was  precious  just  then,  I  chipped 
my  words,  and  the  result  was  we  rode  up  towards 
the  frowning  Fort  together,  as  it  danced  before 
our  bewildered  optics  in  the  glistening  rays  of  an 
early  autumn  sunrise. 

My  mission  ended  and  pony  rested,  and  with 
Mountain  Jim  as  traveling  companion,  returned  to 
the  Painted  Woods.  Here,  at  the  little  stockaded 
bastion,  Jim  found  it  agreeable  to  himself  to  rest 
and  recruit  like  the  geese  he  was  trying  to  imitate, 
which  were  even  then  in  noisy  flocks  in  front  of 
him  on  the  mid-bars  of  the  wide  Missouri. 

During  our  course  of  conversation,  I  found  that 
he  was  well  acquainted  in  Colorado,  and  New 
Mexico,  and  among  other  questions  about  parties 
there  asked  if  he  knew  of  a  wandering  prospector 
called  the  Doctor. 

"Oh  yes'  he  quickly  replied,  '  I  knew  of  that 
poor  fellow  and  of  his  wind-up  too." 

He  then  told  the  following  story,  the  main  par- 
ticulars 1  can  only  repeat,  from  memory's  records, 
prefacing  it  with  a  few  words  about  the  lay  of  the 
land. 

One  of  the  more  important  ranges  of  mountains 
diverging  from  the  Rocky  chain  is  the  Ratoons  of 
northeastern  New  Mexico.  A  well  worn  govern- 
ment trail  formerly  led  across  it  at  the  Picketwire 
pass,  it  being  in  direct  line  between  the  freighting 
points  on  the  Missouri  river,  via  the  middle  Arkan- 
sas river  route — so  called — and  Fort    Union,    for 


16  KALEIDOSCOPIC    LIVES. 

many  years  the  principal  distributing  point  for 
military  supplies  in  the  southwestern  territories. 

The  Ratoon  has  also  its  full  share  of  ghosts  and 
mysteries;  the  border  lands  between  the  Ute  and 
the  Comanchie — the  eastern  frontier  of  the 
dreaded  Apache,  and  the  blue  lines  of  dread  to 
the  hunted  Mexican  shepherds,  around  the  primi- 
tive towns  of  Las  Vegas  and  El  Moro. 

Near  the  summit  of  the  Ratoon  on  this  trail 
surrounded  by  timbered  gulches  and  canons  is  a 
large  clear  water  spring  with  fine,  though  rather 
limited  pasture  grounds  for  stock.  The  writer 
well  remembers  that  in  that  overland  journey  of 
1864-5,  that  at  this  place  were  the  bones  of  over 
seven  hundred  head  of  oxen,  the  victims  of  the 
severities  of  an  October  snow  storm  and  short 
feed.  The  loss  to  the  freighters  was  gain  for  the 
bears,  which  were  numerous  here,  as  we'll  as  the 
savage  brindle  wolves. 

On  one  occassion,  during  the  summer  of  1868, 
a  party  of  freighters  and  stockmen  while  on  their 
way  across  the  Ratoon  range  by  way  of  Picketwire 
pass,  encamped  for  the  night  on  the  summit  near 
these  springs,  and  awoke  next  morning  to  find  a 
portion  of  their  heard  missing.  In  looking  around 
they  discovered  a  fresh  running  trail  leading  over 
the  divide  on  the  west  side,  and  a  party  of  eight 
men  started  upon  it  in  a  rapid  and  determined  gait. 

The  course  was  a  zigzag  one.  but  finally  passed 
over  the  rough  hills  north  of  Maxwell's  noted 
ranch  on  the  Cimmaron  river.  In  a  deep  gulch 
along  one  of  that    river's    little    tributaries,    they 


THE  OPENING  SKETCH.  17 

came  rather  unexpectedly  on  a  lone  white  man 
setting  complacently  by  a  small  camp  fire  with  a 
few  rude  dishes;  a  miner's  pick  and  some  other 
tools,  and  a  canvass  sack  of  supposed  provisions. 
Near  by  were  three  Mexican  burros  browsing  con- 
tentedly. But  a  little  way  beyond  them  the  sharp 
eyes  of  part  of  the  stockmen  detected  some  other 
animals,  which  on  closer  inspection  proved  to  be 
the  stock  they  were  seeking. 

A  short  conversation  among  themselves,  they 
proceeded  to  the  place  of  the  lone  camper,  and 
without  a  word  other  than  an  unaudrble  signal, 
the  stranger  was  pounced  upon  and  bound.  He 
seemed  helpless  and  dumbfounded  at  the  sudden 
assault  and  ihe  after  accusation.  He  had  been 
charged  with  the  theft  of  his  captors'  stock,  and 
they  setting  as  judge,  jury,  witnesses,  and  the 
last  court  of  earthly  appeal,  had  condemned  him 
to  be  strangled  to  death. 

The  condemned  man  protested  vehemently. 
He  was  a  miner  not  a  thief.  He  claimed  absolute 
innocence  of  the  charge,  but  to  no  avail.  Stolen 
horses  were  found  in  his  possession,  And  pos- 
session under  such  circumstances  as  he  was  sur- 
rounded means  guilt,  and  guilt  would  mean  death. 

He  was  therefore  without  further  ado,  and  on 
his  part  without  further  struggle,  taken  by  his 
merciless  captor's  to  a  scraggy  tree  and  swung  up 
by  the  neck  and  left  to  swing  to  and  fro  with  the 
shifting  winds. 

While  hardly  through  with  their  cruel  work, 
some  of  the  lynchers  espied,  a  short  distance  away, 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES, 
a  man  gliding  along  through  a  clump  of  hushes, 
as  though  in  apparent  hiding.  A  chase  was  at 
once  commenced  on  this  second  stranger,  and 
alter  a  wild  and  exciting  time,  was  run  down, 
caught  and  securely  pinoned.  He  proved  to  be  a 
Mexican  and  when  confronted  with  the  charge,  in 
his  terror  confessed  to  the  stealing  of  his  captors' 
stock,  and  begged  piteously  for  mercy.  He  had 
stolen  them  unaided  and  alone.  When  questioned 
about  the  man  just  hanged,  said  that  to  him  per- 
sonally he  was  a  stranger,  though  he  knew  of  him 
as  an  occassional  caller  over  at  Fort  Garland  for 
supplies,  being  a  wandering  prospector,  and  was 
known  there  as  the  Doctor. 

The  truth  now  dawned  on  the  conscience-strick- 
en hangmen,  that  an  innocent  man  had  been  foully 
strangled  by  their  hands.  They  hurriedly  returned 
to  the  body  but  it  was  cold.  The  lifeless  form 
was  cut  from  the  suspending  rope  and  with  many 
self-reproaches,  rolled  up  in  his  blankets,  laid  in  a 
shallow  grave  with  a  note  tacked  upon  an  excuse 
for  a  headboard  —  "hanged  by  mistake,"  and  by 
some  strange  caprice  or  an  inward  feeling  of  hor- 
ror for  what  they  had  done  the  Mexican  was  set 
free. 

I  low  vain  our  most  confident  hopes,  our  bright- 
est triumphs."  So  wrote  Irving  in  summing  up 
I  '<  Balbo's  unhappy  end.  How  true  also  in  this 
case.  In  the  murdered  prospector's  camp  was 
found  rich  ore  recently  mined,  and  as  it  was  but  a 
short  time  later  the  Cimarron  mines  were  discov- 


THE  OPENING  SKETCH. 


19 


erd  and  opened,  that  brought  wealth  to  many,  we 
cannot  doubt  that  the  Doctor  had  been  their  first 
discoverer,  and  while  quietly  working  away  for  a 
homestake  the  dark  shadow  of  an  ignominious 
death  came  upon  him  and  closed  his  golden  dreams 
forever. 


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ON  DIVERGING  LINES. 

ON  the  south  bank  of  the  Missouri,  nine  miles 
north  of  where  the  Cannonball  river  joins 
that  great  Continental  artery,  terminate  the  range 
of  isolated  and  uneven  highlands  now  generally 
termed  the  Little  Heart  ridge.  If  the  Gros  Ven- 
tre Indians  can  bring  forth  plain  truth  from  their 
legend  of  the  summit  of  these  upheaved  crags,  it 
was  here  one  fifth  of  the  remnant  of  that  tribe 
rested  and  were  saved  from  the  destruction  that 
overwhelmed  so  many  of  their  people  several 
hundred  years  ago,  when  the  floodgates  from  the 
ice  bound  Arctic  seas  were  unloosened  and  a  de- 
luge of  waters  poured  down  the  Saskatchewan 
depression,  and  submerged  all  but  the  extreme 
high  points  of  land,  only  decreasing  in  depth 
as  the  waters  spread  out  on  the  wide  southern 
plains  on  its  destructive  path  to  join  the  tepid 
stream  in  the  Mexican  gulf. 

About  one  mile  south  of  this  ridge  can  be  seen 
a  few  isolated  bluffs  for  the  most  part  bare  of  veg- 
etation, and  on  their  topmost  peaks,  round  open- 
ings, that  at  the  distance  of  the  bluffs  base,  to  an 
ordinary  eye,  seem  portholes  from  a  frowning 
fonress.  In  these  cones,  as  early  as  the  opening 
days  of  this  century,  the  first  intrepid  explorers 
of  the  now  dominent  race,  saw  flying  hither  and 
thither  from  these  apertures  the  proudest  birds  in 
all  this  land — the  war  eagle  of  the    wild  Indians. 


KALEIDOSCOPIC    LIVES. 

Across  the  Missouri,  and  northeast  of  these 
described  lands,  hut  some  miles  away  was  a  body 
of  water  known  to  the  native  Sioux  as  "\lde  I  lans- 
ka"  or  the  Long  Lake.  Apart  from  its  shape — 
and  narrow — the  lake  had  no  significance, 
except  that  its  boggy  shores  sheltered  broods  of 
wild  fowl,  and  its  location  a  convenient  camping 
place  for  hunters  of  the  antelope. 

In  the  order  of  marking  time — being  then  the 
month  of  July.  1864, — part  of  the  Sully  expedi- 
tion, a  command  of  several  thousand  soldiers  sent 
out  by  the  government  to  punish  and  subdue  cer- 
tain hostile  bands  of  the  Sioux  in  the  nortwest, 
had  reached  this  vicinity,  just  described,  when 
a  detatchment  of  the  50th  regiment  of  Wisconsin 
volunteers,  acting  under  orders  from  the  Wash- 
ington war  office,  and  who  were  encamped  near 
the  creek  at  the  base  of  the  cone  hills,  commenced 
to  slash  down  the  timber  of  neighboring  groves, 
and  tear  up  the  virgin  sod  and  manufacture 
adobe  or  sun  dried  brick, — so  familiar  in  the  con- 
st ruction  of  dwellings  of  the  natives  of  New  and 
old  Mexico. 

The  building  of  a  "soldier  tepee"  at  that  point 
was  not  relished  by  the  wary  Sioux.  They  could 
not  understand  the  motive  of  the  white  soldiers 
in  wanting  to  build  a  "big  war  house"  among  the 
cone  hills  that  had  long  been  sacred  precincts  of 
incuba'ion  of  this  bird  of  war;  whose  tail  feath- 
ers transferred  to  their  own  heads  were  badges 
of  a  warrior's  rank — marked  in  degree — one  tail 
feather   for  each  "coo"  that   would    count    for    an 


ON  DIVERGING  LINES.  22 

enemy  slain.  Thus  in  pride,  not  even  in  name 
would  they  associate  these  invading  white  soldiers 
with  the  home  of  the  war  eagle,  or  the  miniature 
Mount  Arrat  of  the  Gros  Ventres,  but  as  long  as 
the  banner  floated  in  the  breeze,  or  a  log  rested  up- 
on the  site  of  barrack  or  watch  tower,  that  marked 
the  historic  ground  of  old  Fort  Rice,  the  Yankton 
Sioux  and  their  allied  bands  persisted  in  calling 
that  military  post,  "Mcle  Hanska  Akecita  Tepee" 
or  as  interpreted  into  plain  English, — Long  Lake 
Soldier  house. 

Across  the  river  from  Fort  Rice  in  these  days 
of  the  military  occupation,  and  a  few  miles  down 
stream  was  a  piece  of  low  land  known  as  the 
"lower  hay  bottom."  It  was  here — except  in 
very  dry  seasons — that  the  hay  contractor  could 
finish  up  his  provender  contract  with  the  post 
quartermaster,  but  in  these  exceptional  cases  a 
further  haul  was  made  upon  the  matted  hay  lands 
of  the  Horsehead,  a  few  miles  further  down 
stream.  But  it  was  the  "lower  hay  bottom"  that 
interested  the  writer  and  some  traveling  compan- 
ions in  the  autumn  of  1869,  when  a  comrade  who 
had  done  duty  in  the  regimental  band  at  the  fort 
had  told  his  story  of  an  incident  of  the  haying 
season,  and  pointed  out  a  clump  of  oak  as  the 
spot  made  noted  by  a  fortold  death.  Our  musi- 
cal comrade  of  the  journey  had  joined  us  at  Fort 
Sully,  being  on  his.  return  from  a  furlough  east. 
Upon  after  inquiry  among  the  soldiers  of  the  gar- 
rison his  story  was  confirmed,   and    one   of  these 


KALEIDOSCOPIC    LIVfttf. 

soldiers  and  after  scout — Gros  Ventre  Thompson 

— recounted    this  dream    mystery,    frequently,    up 
to  the  day  of  his  death — twenty  eight  years  after. 
1  [ere  is  die  record  as  related  at  the  time: 

In  the  haying  season  at  the  frontier  military 
posts,  especially  when  there  was  danger  from 
hostile  Indian  raids,  it  was  customary  for  post 
commanders  to  furnish  the  hay  contractors' 
with  a  soldier  escort  both  for  the  hay  camp  proper 
as  well  as  the  moving  train  of  hay  haulers.  The 
camp  detail  was  usually  made  for  the  week,  com 
mencing  Monday  mornings.  At  the  opening  of 
the  haying  season  of  1868  at  Fort  Rice,  the  usual 
demand  was  made  on  the  post  commandant  lor 
escort  for  the  lower  haying  camp,  as  small  war 
parties  of  hostile  Indians  were  known  to  be  on  the 
move.  The  detail  was  ordered  and  among  the 
names  of  those,  who.  in  the  order  of  chance  was 
placed  upon  the  first  sergeant's  roll,  was  that  of  a 
young  soldier  named  Yane.  On  hearing  his  name 
called  for  the  detail,  the  soldier  boy  bursts  into 
tears,  and  begged  to  be  transferred  to  some  other 
duty  When  pressed  for  reasons — he  related  a 
strange-  dream  of  the  previous  night,  in  which  he 
stood  in  the  crotch  of  a  low  growing  and  scraggy 
oak  tree,  looking  over  a  plain  of  waving  grass, 
when  he  saw  that  he  was  shot  and  felt  himself 
in  the  sensations  of  dying,  and  was  thus  in  affright 
when  the  bugle  sounded  the  morning  revelle. 

He    was    ridiculed    by    his  companions,  but  he 

could  n<»!  be  comforted  and  even  went  to  the  post 

inlander  wit-,  his   plea,    but   the  result    was  he 


Long  Soldier. 

I  QCpa]  >a  Chief,  whose  band  liar- 

rassed  the  Garrison   at  old 

Fort  Rice   in    the 

Sixties. 


ON  DIVERGING  LINES.  24 

joined  the  escort  and  went  down  to  the  hay  field. 
At  he  came  near  the  camp  he  pointed  to  the  tree 
clump  of  his  dream.  Calmness  reigned  in  air 
on  water  and  within  the  troubled  breast.  The 
low  muffled  sounds  of  the  mowing  machines  at 
work,  alone  reached  the  ears  of  the  soldier  escort 
as  they  lay  curled  in  the  tent  shade  watching  laz- 
ily the  hay  pitchers  sweltering  under  an  August 
sun. 

"Indians!" 

"Oh,  Indians  be  damned,"  yawned  a  soldier, 
"not  a  hostile  scare  crow  within  a  long  hundred 
miles." 

The  timid  antelope  feed  quietly  in  sight  upon 
the  neighboring  bluffs.  The  ravan  croaks  and 
caws  unconcernedly  in  airial  flight, — hovering  be- 
tween bluff  and  woodland.  The  little  yellow 
flanked  swifts,  trot  around  windward  of  the  camp 
fire,  sniffing  with  unappeased  hunger. 

"Indians!" 

"How  scary  those  haymakers  must  be!"  drawled 
a  peevish  escort,  "to  have  us  dragged  down  here 
to  watch  Indians  for  them.     Bah!" 

Some  soldiers  arise  and  whist  the  straws  from 
their  woolen  cloths  and  walk  here  and  there  to  pass 
slow  time  away.  Some  go  over  and  talk  to  the 
haymakers;  some  to  the  river  and  two^or  three 
wander  to  the  bluffs.  The  report  of  a  gun  now 
break  the  stillness.  A  bevy  of  chickens  skurry 
through  the  air  in  affright.  The  ravans  cease 
their  cawing;  the  swifts  had  slunk  away;  the  day 
orb  casting  itsjengthingjshadow  across  hill  and 


26  KALKIDOSCOI'IC    LIVES 

valley,— the  big  crimson  hall  seemingly  linger- 
ing behind  the  darkened  rear  base  of  the  long 
high  peaks  where  once  the  Gros  Ventres  hoped 
and  prayed.  The  rays  waft  back  a  stream  of 
purple  across  the  profile  on  Horshead  hills,  and 
the  verest  glimpse  of  receeding  shadows  of 
some  horsemen  in  single  file  are  noted  ere  they 
vanish. 

The  alarm  is  given  and  both  soldiers  and  bay- 
makers  centre  at  the  camp.  Vane  alone  is  miss- 
ing.     A  search  is  ordered  and  a  report  reached. 

"Did  you  find  him?"  asked  the  corporal  com- 
manding, of  an  Irish  soldier  who  had  lingered  in 
the  search. 

"Yes  sir!" 

"Where  was  he?" 

"In  the  oak  clump." 

"Asleep?" 

"No,      Dead.      Bullet  in  his  head.      Scalp    torn 
off.      Stripped  and  mutilated." 
•Saw  no  Indians?" 

"None." 

II 

There  are  times  in  the  matter  of  unimportant 
detail  where  memory  refuses  to  "catch  on"  or 
help  out,  when  a  record  of  the  event  sought  be- 
come misplaced.  I  wave  positiveness  in  saying  it 
was  the  steamer  Big  Horn,  that  brought  General 
Hancock  and  party  from  Fort  Stevenson  to  Fort 
Rice,  on  the  4th  of  July  1869,  though  personally 
fortunate  to  be — at  least  temporarily—of  the  party. 
But  as  this  chronicle  is  a  record  of  events  and  of 


ON  DIVERGING  LINES.  20 

•characters  of  which  the  Hancock  party  had  noth- 
ing to  do, — 1  beg  pardon  of  of  my  readers  for 
this  opening  digression.  But  upon  this  occasion 
while  that  distinguested  officer  was  entertaining 
the  commandant  at  Fort  Rice  and  fellow  officers 
with  a  flow  of  claret  and  champagne  from  the  re- 
ception cabin  on  the  steamer,  the  chronicler  of 
these  pages  had  hied  himself  up  the  gangway, 
and  after  a  few  hundred  yards  stroll,  found  himself 
on  a  cracker  box  seat  at  Durfee  &  Peck's  trading 
house  and  sutler  store  for  the  garrison. 

Gala  day  had  brought  all  the  post  characters 
there.  Leaning  against  the  counter  with  his  legs 
crossed,  rested  Frank  Lafrombeau,  the  half  breed 
Sioux  interpreter,  who  seemed  dreaming  of  the 
awaiting  ferryman,  about  to  take  him  across  the 
dark  river.  Beside  him  and  watching  the  display  of 
red  and  black  blankets  and  bright  caicoes,  was  the 
interpreter's  Sioux  brother-in-law— One  Hundred, 
at  that  time  the  most  noted  Indian  horse  thief  on 
the  Upper  Missouri,  Some  soldiers  were  joshing 
him  and  he  was  giving  "baebtalk"  in  fair  English. 
He  had  previously  made  a  trip  to  St.  Louis  city; 
had  picked  up  considerable  roguery,  and  but  lit- 
tle else,  other  than  his  language  addition  that  was 
any  real  benefit,— rather  the  reverse. 

Further  along  the  counter,  stood  a  tall  black 
man  examining  some  newly  purchased  articles  in 
company  with  the  partner  of  his  bosom — a  smiling 

Sioux  matron.     He  rattled  away  in   Sioux now 

to  his  red  painted  wife — now  to    One  Hundred 


27  KALEIDOSCOPIC    LIVE* 

now  to  some  lounging  Sioux  scouts, — speaking  to 
the  white  soldier  or  citizen,  only  when  spoken'to. 
Why  should  he  do  otherwise?  Let  the  magician 
now  wave  a  prophet's  wand  over  this  black  man's 
head,  and  call  down  time  for  a  year  on  what  is  to 
be.  What  do  we  see?  A  covering  of  cold  earth 
for  Lafrombeau — a  post  interpreter's  garlands  for 
this  Africo-American.  Again  raise  the  wand  of 
magic  over  this  kinky  head— call  time's  advance 
seven  years,  lacking  nine  days.  What  do  we  see? 
A  vale  containing  hundreds  of  dead  and  mutilated 
soldiers.  A  vale  containing  thousands  of  excited 
Indians  putting  to  torture  a  giant  black.  Ramrods 
are  used  to  punch  out  his  eyes;  his  feet  and 
legs    filled    with   shot  and   small    balls. 

4,Why  this  fiendishness?"  asked  the  writhing 
black.  "Why  this  hypocrisy?"  answered  back  his 
red  tormentors,  "and  why  assist  these  white  dogs 
in  spying  us  out  aud  destroying  your  wife's  peo- 
ple?" Thus  had  black  Isaiah  fallen — Fort  Rice's 
second  interpreter. 

Hut  away  with  the  magicians  spell,  Away  with 
the  events  of  what  was  to  be.  Let  Isaiah  talk 
on  with  One  Hundred — let  the  soldiers  joke  and 
josh  in  the  Durfee  &  Peck  trading  house.  It  is  all 
a  part  of  the  life  drama  that  they  are  billed  for. 
But  another  actor  now  appears  at  the  doorway. 
A  boyish  face,  and  form  tall  and  slim.  Eyes,  blue, 
and  with  a  restless  glance,  scanning  the  faces  to 
the  right  and  left  of  him  as  he  strides  softly  along. 

"How,  Melbourne,"  spoke  out  some  one  from 
among  the  group  of  soldiers. 


LA-TON-GA-SHA, 
Chief  of  the  Sans  Arcs  Sioux. 


ON  DIVERGING  LINES  2S 

"How,"  tartly  replied  the  young  fellow  spoken 
to.  as  he  turned  on  his  heels  and  walked    out  the 
doorway,    and    who    was   evidently  searching    for 
some  one  not  within  the  store  room. 

"Melbourne  seems  restless  since  he  received  his 
bobtail,"  spoke  up  another  soldier,  as  he  looked 
toward  the  door. 

"Make  anybody  restless  under  the  circumstan- 
ces," added  still  another  soldier,  "and  almost  hate 
one's  own  race  and  kind." 

"Yes,"  chimed  in  a  bystanding  citizen,  "it  was  a 
pretty  tough  case,  as  I  understand  it." 

At  that  moment  the  steamer's  whistle  at  the 
landing  warned  all  its  passengers  that  time  had 
arrived  to  pull  in  the  gang  planks  for  a  further 
journey  down  stream,  and  half  an  hour  later  Fort 
Rice  and  all  its  "pomp  and  circumstance  of  war," 
was — for  the  time  being — receding  from  our  view. 

After  a  rapid  down  stream  run  of  twenty  hours 
the  steamer   tied  up    at    Cheyenne  agency  lono- 
enough  to  get  ourselves  and  luggage  ashore  and 
say  good   bye  to   casual  acquaintences.      A  week 
or    more    of  observation   among    the    Minnecon- 
jous,   Sans  Arcs  and  Etasapa  Sioux,  I  crossed  the 
big  river,  and  made  camp  with  some   lumbermen 
at  Little  Bend.      I  here  met  some  ex-soldiers  who 
had    seen   service    at    Fort    Rice.       Enquiry    was 
made  about  the  mystery  of  the    Melbourne  case, 
and  here  were  some  of  the  facts  elicited: 

Melbourne  was  certainly  under  the    lawful    age 
when    he   enlisted  as  a  soldier,  though  his  height 


KALIID4  HSCOPIC   LIVES. 

carried  him  on  the  rolls.  He  had  enlisted  alone, 
and  none  among  his  new  found  comrades  seem  to 
know  from  whence  he  came.  It  was  soon  discov- 
ered he  was  a  boy  of  artistic  tastes;  showed  con- 
siderable  book  knowledge  for  one  so  young  in 
years,  and  had  a  remarkable  gift  in  imitative  pen- 
manship. In  his  general  make  up.  the  boy  had  a 
docile,  tractable  disposition  with  modest  demeanor 
and  obliging  ways. 

Many  of  the  older  enlisted  soldiers  at  the  fron- 
tier posts,  in  those  days,    were  confirmed   topers, 
and  some  of  them,  at  least  could    date    their  en- 
listment from  an  effort  to  break  away    from   envi- 
rons   that   held    them    in    hopeless  bondage.      A 
small   allowance  of  whiskey,  within  the    scope    of 
the  army  regulations,  was  habitually  served    from 
the  sutler  store  of  the  garrison  for  such    of  these 
soldiers    whose    appetite    for   intoxicating   drinks 
still  had  control  of  them.     In  certain  emergencies 
the  commander  of  the  post  was  authorized  by  the 
war  department  to  allow  over  his  signature,  the  is- 
suance of  a  certain  amount  of  whiskey  or  brandy 
to  the  party  holding  the  order.     In  apparent  jest 
some    of  the   older    heads  asked    Melbourne    to 
write  out  a  whiskey  order  and  sign  the    post   com- 
mandment's name  to  it.     The  work  was  done    so 
well    that    it    was  repeated    again,  until  the   com. 
mander  wondered  where  the  laxity   came    in   that 
made  a  drunken  mob  which  filled  the  guard  house 
with  so  many  of  his    soldiers,      His    wonderment 
grew  more  intense  when  shown  the  leak  in    com- 
missary whiskey  over  his  own  signature,  and  com- 


ON  DIVERGING  LINES  30 

menced  to  fear  thai  he  had  been  "out  of  his  head" 
at  times,  as  his  signed  name  was  so  apparently 
genuine  he  could  not  doubt  the  authorship. 

The  young  soldier  became  fearful  of  exposure, 
and  the  consequences  thereof,  so  when  solicited 
by  his  comrades  for  a  renewal  of  forged  orders, 
he  absolutely  refused.  In  consequence  of  re- 
fusal these  same  soldiers  reported  to  the  post 
commander  that  the  boy  Melbourne  was  the 
author  of  the  whiskey  forgeries.  As  was  to  be 
expected  the  young  fellow  was  thrown  in ~the  post 
guard  house,  and  while  saved  from  the  penitentiary 
by  the  influence  of  an  officer's  wife — dishonorably 
discharged  from  the  United  States  army. 

During  the  closing  days  of  August  of  that  year 
1869,  the  chronicler  found  himself  employed  as 
camp  lookout  or  day  guard  for  the  two  contractors, 
Dillon  &  McCartney's  haying  camp,  having  tem- 
porarily pitched  our  tent  on  the  west  side  of  the 
big  river  two  miles  north  of  the  Grand  River 
Agency.  The  shooting  down  of  Cook  a  few  days 
previous,  without  excuse  or  provocation,  by  a 
brother  of  the  Uncpapa  chief,  Long  soldier,  and 
his  open  boast  that  this  herder  would  not  be  the 
last  he  would  send  to  the  "white  man's  happy 
hunting  ground,"  with  the  lionizing  he  received  in 
this  big  brother's  camp,  put  us  on  our  guard.  My 
duty  was  to  watch  every  movement  indicating  a 
grouping  of  Indians  between  their  camps  on  Oak 
creek  and  the  hay  cutters  at  work.  They  had 
made  many  threats,  and  we  were  hourly  in  expec- 


SI  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

tancy  of  trouble.  Some  distance  above  our  camp 
was  that  of  the  cattle  contractor's  herd,  with  the 
two  Mulls— Fadden  and  Herron  in  charge.  The 
lands  about  here  were  full  of  historic  interest  to 
the  Indian  race,  especially  the  persecuted  Arica- 
rees.  Three  miles  away  on  the  south— forcing  its 
way  through  a  semi-sterile  line  of  tortuous  bluffs 
from  the  west  comes  in  the  swift  flowing,  modern 
Grand,  but  named  with  two  centuries  of  practice — 
in  courtesy  by  the  all  conquering  Sioux, — Pah- 
donee  Towa  Wakpah — or  as  interpreted  into 
the  English  tongue — Rees  Own  River.  Beyond 
its  banks  of  alternate  sand  and  clay  and  midway 
with  Oak  creek's  parallel  lines,  the  uneven  ground 
mounds  and  depressions  mark  the  site  of  the  old 
village  where  the  Aricaree  chiefs  scorned  the 
profered  whiskey  tendered  them  by  Lewis  and 
Clark  in  1804,  with  the  sensible  remark  that  "peo- 
ple who  tried  to  make  fools  of  us  by  taking 
away   our    wits,  could   not  be  our  friends." 

From  my  camp  observatory — on  the  bench  lands 
near  by  was  another  interesting  site — and  like  the 
dreamer  that  I  was,  went  down  from  my  perch 
one  pleasant  afternoon  to  revel  among  rhe  ruins. 
It  was  here  thirty  six  years  before,  that  this  litlle 
Aricaree  town  consisting  of  about  one  hundred 
and  fifty  lodges,  poorly  palisaded—  yielded  up  as 
a  sacrifice  on  the  alter  of  helpless  prejudice  the 
warm  blood  of  many  of  its  mothers  and  its 
daughters— of  sons  and  fathers.  From  my  stony 
guard  perch  on  yonder  hill,  had  belched  forth 
from  big  morter  guns  shot  and  shell  on  this    hap- 


ON  DIVERGING  LINES  32 

less  town  many  years  before  evacuation  by  its 
builders  and  owners  and  its  final  destruction  by 
the  all  conquering  Sioux.  On  the  lowlands,  be- 
yond had  come  the  soldiers  under  Leavenworth; 
the  frontiersmen  under  Ashley  and  the  wild  Sioux 
of  the  plain  all  bearing  down  on  the  fearless  vil- 
lagers and  their  well  cultivated  fields  of  ripened 
corn.  This  was  on  the  ever  fateful  ioth  day  of 
August  1823.  You  can  wonder  as  I  had  done, 
considering  the  great  advantage  in  equipment 
and  numerial  superiority  of  their  enemies  how 
any  of  the  Aricarees  got  away,  but  they  did— 
though  many  of  them  were  left  among  the  lodges 
and  on  the  plain  as  feed  for  coyotes  and  buzzards. 
I  could  see  the  upper  town  as  painted  by  Catlin  a 
few  years  before,  its  abandonment  and  destruction; 
could  see  its  frail  pickets  behind  which  the  happy 
villagers  reveled  in  all  the  pleasures  their  free, 
wild  life  gave.  In  fancy,  I  could  see  the  inmates 
scan  from  house  top  and  lookout — objects  whose 
sameness  never  seem  to  tire  the  eye.  From  youth 
to  old  age,  the  stone  guard  of  the  pinnacle  is  more 
familiar  to  the  village  inmate,  than  was  a  member 
of  the  family,  inasmuch  as  time's  eternal  transit 
would  leave  no  impress.  I  pass  on  to  the  last 
struggle  and  see  hopelessness  and  dispair  on  the 
one  side, — an  anticipated  carnival  of  blood  on  the 
other. — 

"Hello  there!" 

My  dream  or  conjuration  vanished  at  the  sound. 
Before  me  stood  a  tall,  pale  faced  young  fellow, 
of  17  or  18  years,  with  his  blue  orbs  gazing  stead- 


KALEIDOSCOPIC   LIVES 

ily  in  my  face.     I  made  a  venture  at  recognition. 

"Your  name  is  Melbourne,  I  believe." 

"That's  what  it  is." 

"Sit  down  then.     I  want  to  ask  some  questions." 

He  sat  down  quietly  on  a  mound  with  an  in- 
tense look  of  anxious  inquiry  pictured  on  his  boy- 
ish looking  face.  He  gave  a  look  of  surprise 
when  questioned  about  his  boyhood  but  his  replies 
were  so  studiously  evasive  that  I  changed  tack  to 
Fort  Rice,  and  of  the  trouble  that  led  to  his  dis- 
missel  from  the  army.  He  made  but  little  more 
admission  than  what  has  already  been  told.  It 
was  plain  to  be  seen  the  subject  was  distasteful. 

"Hello,"  said  he  suddenly  looking  up  towards 
the  hills,  "there  goes  a  crowd  of  Indians  to  the 
cow  camp,  and  I  must  go — won't  you  come  along?" 

"Yes,  I'll  go  long",  I  replied,  ''and  see  your 
outfit." 

"I  am  going  to  ask  some  old  Sioux  patriarch 
all  about  that  Ree  village,"  said  he,  tossing  back 
his  arm  as  we  jogged  alon^. 

After  reaching  the  herd  camp,  we  found  about 
one  dozen  Indians  of  both  sexes  standing  around. 
Norwithstanding  my  limited  amount  of  Sioux,  I 
undertook  to  draw  some  information  about  the 
old  Aricaree  village  from  a  veteran  Uncapapa,  but 
the  grey  haired  warrior  referred  to  his  chief  the 
noted  orator  Running  Antelope,  as  one  of  the  few 
still  living  who  participated  in  the  destruction  of 
that  village. 

My  dialectic  twists  and  imperfect  rendition  of 
the  Sioux  caught  Melbourne's  attention,  and  com- 


ON  DIVERGING  LINES  34. 

ing  up  to  where  I  was  standing,  said,  "Oh!  jude, 
let  me  talk,"  and  surprised  me  with  an  exhibition 
of  a  masterful  rendition  of  the  Sioux  tongue; 
going  ftom  one  to  another,  male  and  female,  con- 
versing with  perfect  control  of  the  gutteral  stum- 
bling blocks,  to  amateur  linguists  in  the  language 
of  the  Sioux.     In  surprise,  I  said: 

"Where  did  you  pick  up  such  perfect  Sioux." 

"Where  do  I  pick  anything  up,"  he  replied 
"tell  me  and  I'll  tell  you."  Then  after  a  moment 
of  silence  he  resumed:  "I  suppose  you  think  all 
I  need  is  a  blanket  to  make  a  good  Indian— or 
a  bad  one!" 

After  bidding  him  good  day  and  starting  back 
to  camp,  he  called  out: 

"You  see  tftis  hooded  Indian  here.  He's  the 
fellow  that  plugged  the  arrows  into  Cook." 

I  had  an  occasion  to  reme  mber  Cook.  With  a 
rough  wagon  and  a  span  of  mules,  I  took  him 
from  the  agency  physician's  care  at  Grand  River, 
and  in  two  days  landed  him  in  the  surgeon's  care 
at  Fort  Sully — distance  without  trail — 120  miles. 
This,  to  prolong  Cook's  life. 

In  the  autumn  of  1883.  a  party  of  Minnecon- 
jous  who  had  been  absent  from  their  agency  for 
over  two  years  returned  and  encamped  near  the 
mouth  of  Big  Cheyenne  river.  They  were  what 
was  termed  at  the  agency,  "hostiles"  and  were 
known  to  have  been  with  Pawnee  Killer  and  his 
band  of  Brules  on  the  Platte  river.  Through 
some  of  the    agency  Indians  it   was  learned  that 


35  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

they  had  been  concerned  in  the  massacre  ot  the 
Buck  surveying  party  in  which  Contractor  Buck 
and  his  party,  consisting  of  twelve  men.  in  all,  lost 
their  lives  by  the  hands  oi  these  hostiles.  They 
claimed  that  the  bloody  work  had  been  care- 
fully planned  and  its  execution  intrusted  to  a 
young  white  man  who  had  been  with  the  party 
lor  some  time,  and  known  as  the  White  Soldier. 
These  murders  took  place  in  western  Nebraska, 
near  the  country  known  as  the  Sand  Hills.  No 
details  could  be  elicited  further  than  whatever 
blame  was  attached  or  credit  given — as  viewed  on 
diverse  lines, — must  be  given  to  this  white  man. 
The  Indians  described  him  as  but  a  tall  boy,  a  good 
linguist  in  the  Sioux  tongue,  dressy  and  vain.  He 
painted  in  true  Indian  style,  with  pendants,  hair 
ornaments  and  beaded  blankets.  After  the  mas- 
sacre of  the  surveyors,  he  decked  his  head  with 
many  war  eagle  feathers  as  his  right,  thus  an  envy 
was  created—  and  soon  after  through  some  fancied 
grievance  from  a  jealous  red,  he  was  tomahawked 
to  death,  and  with  true  savagery  his  body  mutila- 
ted and  left  uncovered  to  rot  upon  the  prairie. 

The  identity  ot  the  renegade  soldier  was  not  long 
a  mystery.  Among  this  band  of  Minneconjous, 
was  a  young  fellow  who  had  picked  up  some  En- 
glish around  the  old  agency  at  Grand  river.  He 
was  asked  about  the  white  renegade  and  if  he 
knew  him.  He  answered  that  he  knew  him  well. 
as  did  his  questioners.  "Minneconjous  call  Kim 
White  Soldier"  said  he,  "but  white  soldiers  called 
him  Melbourne." 


ON  DIVERGING   LINES.  36 

III 
1  was  sitting  in  the  doorstep  of  the  little  fort- 
fied  homestead  claim  at  the  Woods,  wonder- 
ing as  many  another  had  done  before  and  after 
that  date — August,  1873 — when,  land  values 
would  take  a  jump  and  either  let  us  out  of  the 
farm,  or  bring  some  encouragement  to  remain 
in  posssession.  The  timber  point  in  which  I  was 
domiciled,  had  been  the  first  squatter  land  claim 
staked  off  along  the  Missouri  north  of  the  North- 
ern Pacific  railroad,  and  although  the  time  had  been 
but  little  over  a  )  ear  since  the  advent  of  the  loco- 
motive, the  strain  of  expectancy  had  a  disturbing 
effect  on  the  nerves,  notwithstanding  the  spice  of 
existence  was  somtimes  enlivened  by  the  self  in- 
troduction of  some  "character."  Character  study 
always  interesting,  sometimes  assumes  even 
a  poetic  glint,  when  the  conditions  of  the  mind 
harmonize  with  the  poetry  in  nature.  At  no 
period  in  ihe  revolving  of  the  seasons  does  the 
poeiic  or  the  visionary  take  possession  of  the 
the  soul  within  us,  as  on  fine  August  days.  Espe- 
cially i=  this  true  to  the  denizens  who  live  along 
the  changing  banks  of  the  Upper  Missouri  river, 
which  mighty  stream  save  when  bound  by  icy  fet- 
ters, is  ever  presenting  itself  to  the  human  eye, 
through  the  revolving^  lens  of  the  kaleidoscope. 
Yet  with  all  iis  shifting  moods  of  anger  or  serenity 
ihere  is  no  charm  so  entransing  to  the  poetical 
dreamer,  in  solitare  of  the  revery,  as  along  the 
changing  and  falling  banks  and  within    hearing  of 


KALE!    I  >Sl  !0PIC   LIVES 

tin-  muffled  noises  ol   ihe  swirling  waters  oi   ihis 
strange  old  river,    on  tranquil    autumn    mornings. 

Ih  is  within  hearing  <>t  the  low  roari  g  watei  5 
girdled  with  a  heavy  forest  of  great  cottonwoods, 
that  hide  you  in  continuous  shade, — what  wonder 
that  the  mind  becomes  mellowed  in  revery, 
Characters  —  not  mithical  ones— but  <>t  the  plain 
flesh  and  blood  kind,  pass  in  review.  Here  at 
the  gate  of  this  stockade  had  appeared  a  war  party 
whose  only  tropin'  ol  their  prowess  to  show,  ha  1 
had  been  the  crimson  blotched  scalp  of  a  sixl 
year  old,  Sioux  girl.  Characters  had  been  here 
who  had  talked  wisdom  from  an  owl.  Characters 
had  been  here  who  had  seen  phantom  1 
manned  by  phantom  crews  move  noiselessly 
clown  stream.  Less  than  a  year  before  a  yo 
man  of  fine  physical  carriage  had  passed  up  the 
trail  with  no  weapon  but  a  hatchet,  afoot  and  alone 
"looking  for  a  team  just  a  little  ways  ahead."  Six 
months  later  he  had  reappeared.  Frozen  hands; 
frozen  feet — frozen  face.  Clothed  in  tatters  and 
bareheaded. 

"Where  have  you  been?"  had  asked  a  transient 
companion  of  mine,  on  the  man's   reappearance. 

••Living  with  the  deer." 

That  was  all  he  had  for  answer— living  With  the 
deer.  Show  me  Burleigh  City's  graveyard  and  1 
will  show  you  this  man's  grave.  Xo  questions  as 
to  his  name?  No  questions  about  where  he  was 
from?  No  inquiry  about  the  young  wife  who  had 
gone  estray.J  For  we  will  answer  no  questions 
here.     But  irom  his  first  arrival  on   the  Slope,  this 

286241 


ON   DIVERGING   LINES.  38 

cloud)  wanderer's  one  central  thought  was  in 
looking  for  that  team—  "just  a  little  ways  ahead." 
Out  from  this  revery.  Out  from  gazing-  on 
these  shifting  characters  in  transit  across  the 
Woods.  They  march  along  the  boards  like  the 
stage  actors  in  the  Gassandria  play.  Reynolds — 
McCall  the  Miner — Bloody  Knife — Guppy — Chiss 
Chippereen — johnny  of  the  Rose  Buds — Dia- 
mond the  VVolfer — Long  Hair  Mary.  They  all 
move  across — noiseless  phantoms  drawn  out  in 
review  to  the  unseen  eye  by  the  brain's  conjuration. 
While  thus  in  silent  rumination  sounds  of  a  walk- 
ing horse  was  heard,  and  a  moment  later  there 
appeared  at  the  timber  opening  a  tall  man  lead- 
ing a  scrub  pony,  coming  toward  the  stockade, 
The  man  ambled  forward  in  an  ungainly  way.  A 
long  Lorn  rifle  of  the  old  style — days  of  our  grand- 
father epoch—  angled  across  his  shoulder.  A 
coon  skin  cap  was  pressed  down  over  his  massive 
Lead  o(  matted  hair.  A  long  grease  soiled 
buckskin  shirt,  with  tangled  fringes,  hung  loosely 
over  his  unshapely  form.  And  over  it  all  hung 
a  huge  old  fashioned  cow  powder  horn.  A  poor 
old  pony — having  the  appearance  of  being  an 
Indian's  'turned  out, "with  a  fairly  decent  saddle, 
and  across  die  seat  were  thrown  a  roll  of  blankets, 
while  tied  to  the  pummel  was  a  gunny  sack  with 
a  mess  of  Hour,  and  two  or  three  blackened  peach 
cans  that  evidently  did  duty  in  the  culinary. 

I  had  seen  such  habiliments  in  which  this  stran- 
ger was  attired,  pictured  in  the  old  early  Ohio 
books  that  told  us  all  about    Simon    Girty,    Lewis 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

Whetzel  or  old  Daniel  Boone.  Could  my  eyes 
deceive  me,  or  was  this  another  Rip  Van  Win- 
kle case;  a  ninety  scars  sleep?  At  any  rate  my 
fad  was  gratified.     I  had  a  new  character  to  solve. 

'•You  are  a  hunter,  I    guess,"    I  had    ventured 
to  say. 

'•That  what  1  am"  lie  retorted, 

"Where  have  you   been  hunting?  ' 

"Of  late— down  around  Fort    Rice." 

"Get  any  game  down   that  way?" 

"I  reckon  I  did.      Elk,  antelope,  deer,  bear  and 
moose.' 

"Moose?* 

"That's  what  I  said.      Moose!" 
There  is  no  moose  on  this  river." 

"I  reckon  there  is  moose  on  this  river.  I  killed 
a  young  bull  moose  on  the  bottom  this  side  of 
Fort  Rice.  I  reckon  I  know  what  I'm  talking 
about.     I'm  a  moose  hunter  from  Maine! 

"A  moose  hunter  from  Maine?" 

"That's    what    I   am.     A   moose    hunter  from 
Maine." 

"Well,  unsaddle  and  bring   your  donnage   in?" 

That's  what  I'll  do,  for  I'm  going  to  slay  a 
whole  month  with  you." 

"Baited  with  curiosity  and  springing  my  own 
trap,'  said  I  softly. 

On  the  following  ^morning  my  unkempt  guest, 
said  his  desire  was  to  use  the  stockade  as  a  kind 
of  headquarters.  He  wou.'d  hunt  a  little;  visit  a 
little;  with  an  occasional  trip  to  the  town  by  the 
railroad.      This  he  did,  but  in  his  hunts   he   never 


ON  DiVfiKOLNG    LINES.  m 

brought  back  any  game;  in  his  visits  to  distant 
woodyards  he  brought  back  no  greeting  and 
in  his  weekly  visits  to  the  town  he  brought  no  in- 
formation from  the  outside  world. 

One  day  we  concluded  to  visit  the  Burnt  woods 
on  the  west  side  where  Williams  &  Wheeler  were 
getting  out  cordwood  for  the  steamboats.  Chris 
Weaver  here  told  the  story  of  his  premonition  at 
the  Spanish  Woodyard  whereby  the  warning  had 
saved  his  life.  The  moose  hunter  was  greatly 
interested  in  its  recital.  On  our  road  home  in 
passing  through  the  long  bottom  above  the  little 
fort  we  espied  a  traveling  war  party,  and  I  sug- 
gested we  keep  out  of  sight  until  they  passed. 
He  complied  with  alacrity.  But  some  of  the  red 
warriors  had  already  seen  us,  and  in  our  fancied 
security  were  treated  to  a  surprise.  They  had 
us  surrounded.  They  were  Gros  Ventres,  how- 
ever, and  took  in  the  moose  hunter  at  a  glance. 
After  surveying  his  muzzle  loading  long  torn,  one 
warrior  extending  his  open  palm  said  in  English: 

"Caps!" 

In  a  second  the  moose  hunter  handed  him  a 
full  box  of  percussions,  and  the  Gros  Ventre 
clasped  them  and  made  off. 

"Why,  what  a  dough-god  to  give  that  Indian  all 
your  gun  caps"  I  said  chidingly. 

"Oh,  I've  got  another  box,"  he  replied,  "and  if 
1  did'nt  have,  it  would't  be  much  loss,"  he  added 
philosophically. 

A  few  days  later,  the  hunter  said  he  would 
*  'take  a  ramble  up  to   Forts    Stevenson   and   Ber 


4  1  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

thold,"  which  he  did,  but  failed  to  return.  A  Port 
Buford  mail  carrier  had  noted  him  as  a  "queer  old 
bloke  who  had  stopped  at  every  Indian  camp  and 
wood  yard  that  he    came  to." 

The  year  following  the  steamer  Nellie  Peck 
tied  up  tor  the  night  at  Mercer  &  Gray's  yard  at 
Painted  Woods  landing.  Dr.  Terry  a  St.  Louis 
ex-physician  was  acting  as  clerk  and  purchasing 
furs  for  the  Durfee  &  Peck  company.  Sitting  in 
the  boats  cabin  were  a  party  relating  incidents  of 
happenings  along  the  river.  Among  others  the 
writer  told  of  his  experience  with  the  moose 
hunter  from  Maine.  At  conclusion  of  the  reci- 
tal, Or.  Terry,  volunteered  the  following  ad- 
denda: 

"1  happen  to  know  something  about  your 
moose  hunter.  You  had  seen  him  in  a  clever 
make-up.  He  is  a  good  trailer  But  he  is  bet- 
ter at  hunting  men  than  moose.  He  has  a  coun- 
try-wide reputation  as  one  of  the  shrewdest 
sleuths  on  the  Pinkerton  detective  force." 

IV 

At  the  close  of  the  month  of  April,  i  -6j.  two 
men  »at  astride  log  stools  looking  into  the  blazing 
fire  in  a  little  makeshift  cabin  at  the  lower  bend 
of  what  was  known  in  those  days  as  "Out  a  luck 
Point."  being  the  second  timber  bend  on  the  west 
side  of  the  river  Missouri  above  Ft  rt  Stevenson. 
Both  were  looking  into  the  blaze  in  silent  cogita- 
tion, but  whither  dreaming  over  the  past  or  into 
the  future  the  chronicler  could  not  divine.      With 


ON  DIVERGING   LINES.  42 

each  of  these  men  past  dreams  were  far  from 
pleasant  lingerings,  and  it  was  well  for  their  peace 
of  mind  that  their  dreams  ot  the  futuro  were  in 
wide  divergence  from  the  actual.  But  as  before 
stated  their  dreams  were  known  only  to  them 
selves,  but  the  coming  of  what  was  to  be,  as  far 
as  their  earthly  tenure  was  concerned,  became  a 
part  of  the  records  of  their  surviving  contempor- 
aries. Had  the  veil  hiding  actuality  of  the  future 
been  raised  beyond  the  burning  brands  in  which 
each  of  them  were  silently  gazing,  each  could 
have  brhelda  thorny  path  in  their  few  remaining 
years.  One  could  have  seen  himself  shot  to 
death,  his  body  placed  in  a  shallow  grave  with  a 
blanket  both  for  shroud  and  coffin.  The  site  that 
marked  his  grave  now  mark  the  path  of  swift 
flowing  channel  waters.  His  companion  had  lin- 
gered in  life  a  few  years  later  A  gloomy  forest 
shrouded  him — alone  and  unseen  by  mortal  man 
he  died  a  maniac's  death.  Buzzards  feasted  upon 
his  decayed  flesh;  badgers  sported  with  his  scat- 
tered bones. 

"1  seed  the  shadow  of  that  Injun  to  night  agin, 
and  don't  like  it. "  said  one  of  the  men  without 
withdrawing  his  gaze  from  the  burning  coals.  He 
was  the  larger  and  older  of  the  two. 

"Kind  a  queer.''  answered  his  companion,  ''if 
he  belonged  up  in  the  village  and  not  come  around 
here.  Been  poking  about  the  bluffs  for  five  or 
six  days.  ' 

4'Jist  a  week  to  night  since  I  first  seed  him!" 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

4,l>id    you    cache    the    stock   in  a  new  place  to 
ni^ht.'' 
Ves." 

"We  ought  to  rest  easy  then." 

They  did,  but  in  going  out  to  their  stock  cashe 
next  morning  their  animals  were  missing.  Two  fine 
mules  and  two  work  ponies.  The  loss  of  stock 
forced  the  abandonment  of  the  woodyard. 

The  mules  were  the  property   of  Trader    Mal- 

nori,      of  Fort   Berthold.      In    about    four    weeks 

from    date   of  disapearance    of  the     animals    the 

trader  received  the  following  note  through  a  scout 

dispatch  bearer.     The    language    was  in   French 

with  the  following  English  interpretation: 

Fort  Rice,  (no  date.) 
Mr.  C.  Malnori:      Opanwinge  says  he  found  your 
mules.     Send  a  man  down  with  $200  and  take  them 
home.     Yours  with  regards,         F.  LaFromboiss. 

The  man  and  money  was  sent  to  Fort  Rice  and 

mules  and  man  came  home. 

"I  guess,  I'll  try  wood-yarding  a  little  nearer 
home,"  said  Trader  Malnori  when  his  mules  were 
brought  to  his  stables  at  Fort  Berthold.  He  had 
some  wood  cut  opposite  to  the  fort.  The  same 
mules  were  sent  across  the  river  to  do  the  wood 
hauling  and  the  same  man  sent  with  them  who  had 
had  charge  of  their  keeping  at  Point  Out-a-luck. 
A  man  known  as  jimmy  Deer  and  two  red  mat- 
rons crossed  over  the  river  in  a  bull  boat  to  pile 
the  cord  wood  brought  to  bank.  The  trail  of  the 
hauler  led  through  a  line  of  willows  for  half  a 
mile    or   more.      For  two  or   three   days  all  went 


ON  DIVERGING   LINKS.  44 

well.  Bat  it  was  a  dangerous  neighborhood.  The 
driver  from  (  hit  a  luck  had  provided  himself  with 
a  Colt's  army  and  a  double  barreled  shot  gun 
heavily  charged  with  buck  shot.  One  fine  morn- 
ing the  driver  hitched  up  his  mules  as  usual  and 
trotted  the  team  over  the  rough  bottom  road  gaily 
to  the  crib  pile.  His  pistol  and  shot  gun  were 
bouncing  up  and  down  in  the  wagon  box  as  he 
hummed  an  old  French  song.  At  a  point  where 
the  willows  lined  a  sand  ridge  a  naked  Indian 
arose  quickly,  pointing  a  gun  at  the  wagon  box 
fired  away.  The  driver,  forgeting  all  about  his 
buckshot  gun  and  pistol,  dropped  his  lines  and 
springing  trom  the  wagon  on  the  opposite  side  to 
the  Indian  dashed  into  the  willows.  The  red  man 
hopped  into  the  wagon,  gathered  up  the  lines  of 
the  now  excited  mules  drove  out  toward  the  bluffs 
as  far  as  the  wood  trail  led,  unhitched  and  unhar- 
nessed the  mules,  gathered  up  the  pistol  and  shot 
gun,  jumped  astride  of  one  of  the  animals,  and  was 
off  on  fast  time  over  the  hill's.  Meantime  the  shot 
alarmed  the  corder  and  the  two  matrons  who  had 
made  a  rush  for  the  boat  and  in  the  excitement  of 
embarkation  sunk  it  and  nearly  drowned  all  hands. 
About  one  month  later  Trader  Malnori  received 
the  following  note  through  an  Indian  runner  from 
Fort  Rice,  written  as  the  former  one,  in  French, 
with  the  following  English  interpretation: 

Fort  Rice,  (no  date) 
Mr.  C.  Malnori. — Opanwinge  has  found  your  mules 
again.     Send  down  a  man  with  $200.       Yours  with 
regards,  F.   LaFjrombotbe. 

There  is  no  record    of  Malnori's   answer,    but 
Opanwinge  kept  the  mules. 


KALEIDOSCOPIC   U\  KS 

\ 

About  the  middle  of  fuly,  [871,  while  journey- 
ing down  the  Missouri  with  a  single  companion,  in 
a  precariously  constructed  bull  boat,  we  hauled  in 
at  Fori  Rice,  and  walked  up  to  the  trader's  store 
for  the  purpose  of  making  a  few  purchases  Here 
and  there  we  noted  a  few  familiar  laces  of  past 
visits  to  the  post, but  for  the  most  part  the  loungers 
at  the  trading  establishment  were  strangers.  ( )ne 
young  fellow  with  a  dark  skin  was  masquerading  in 
boorish  antics  with  some  Indians.  Inq  iiry  solicited 
the  information  that  he  was  a  Mexican  lad  who 
had  enlistetl  as  a  scout.  Another  conspicuous 
character — from  his  manner  of  speech—  was  a  red 
headed,  freckled  faced  young  man,  who  was  fa- 
miliarly termed  "Reddy"  but  was  spoken  of  as 
Red  Clark.  Among  a  group  of  scouts  gathered 
near  the  doorway  was  a  small,  fine  featured  Indian 
boy  dressed  in  blue  uniform  of  which  he  seemed 
quite  proud.  This  boy  was  a  Sioux,  and  recently 
distinguished  himself  in  saving  the  post  herd  from 
a  well  planned  raid  by  a  war  party  of  his  hostile 
countrymen.  The  raiders  suddenly  swarmed  out 
of  a  coulee  on  the  apparently  unprotected  herd, 
but  the  boy  Bad  Bird  instead  of  fleeing  for  his  lile 
as  many  another  in  his  place  would  have  clone, 
counteracted  the  efforts  of  the  hostile  raiders  frc.Mii 
stampeding  the  cattle  until  help  came  from  the 
fort.  The  baffled  warriors  fired  a  few  shoes  after 
the  boy.  but  luckily  none  taking  effect,  he  rode 
back  to  the  post  the  hero  of  the  hour. 

In  the  move  <>f  -vents    from    that    date — some 


ON  DIVERGING  LINES,  ±; 

two  years  or  more — Red  Clark  and  Bad  Bird  be- 
came intimate  friends,  as  people  saw  them.  They 
started  out  on  a  trip  across  the  big  river  one  night 
opposite  to  Fort  Rice  with  jovial  parting  good  by's 
to  the  ferryman.  They  entered  the.  heavy  brush 
beyond  the  ferryman's  ken,  together.  Clark  came 
back  alone.  The  next  day  Bad  Bird's  corpse  was 
found  with  a  bullet  mark  through  his  head.  Clark 
was  tried  and  acquitted  for  this  murder.  He  plead 
self  defence;  night  had  hid  the  crime  and  no  one 
could  prove  to  the  contrary.  Besides  this  the 
dead  Indian  boy  was  of  cne  race,  the  judge,  jury, 
witnesses  and  prisoner  of  another. 

Five  years  passed  by  and  Clark  stood  leaning 
against  the  counter  of  a  dive  in  Butte,  Montana. 
A  stranger  entered  the  place,  called  for  a  drink  of 
whiskey  and  threw  a  silver  dollar  on  the  counter  to 
the  barkeeper  for  payment.  Clark  looked  up  to 
the  man  who  would  not  stand  treat,  and  clapping 
his  open  palm  across  the  silver  piece,  said  jocosely: 

"That's   mine.'" 

"No,"  said  the  stranger,  "That  is  not  yours." 

"That's  mine,"  reiterated  Clark  with  an  at- 
tempt at  gravity,  and  the  next  second  a  bullet 
went  crashing  though  his  skull. 

A  closing  word  about  the  Mexican  lad  and  our 
curtain  falls  on  these  events  of  Fort  Rice's  earlv 
history.  Santa,  later,  developed  a  .penchant  for 
wild  Indian  life  and  made  the  acquaintance  of  a 
Sioux  hanger-on  named  Black  Fox,  and  the  two 
connived  plan  for  a  trip  to  the  hostile  Sioux,  then 
in  camp  on  Powder  river.      Santa  Anna    deserted 


47  KALEIDOSCOPIC   LIVES 

his  command  and  quarters  on  a  November  even 
ins  taking  his  horse,  <<un  and  amunition  with  him. 
besides  a  well  Riled  sack  of  provisions.  Black 
Fox  was  also  similarity  equipped,  lacking  the  pro 
visions.  Riding  back  on  the  highlands  they  made 
themselves  conspicuous  by  facing  about  from 
the  dome  of  a  conical  butte  and  surveying  the 
beautiful  tinted  landscape.  The  trim  post  was  as 
silent  and  inactive  in  its  surroundings  as  a  military 
fort  could  well  be.  The  mellow  rays  from  the 
setting-  sun  shone  in  glittering  splendor  from  the 
west  end  of  the  buildings.  The  long  line  of  brown 
marked  the  course  of  ice  conjested  waters  of  the 
Missouri  that  the  crisp  air  had  wrought.  Santa  An- 
na had  probably  wondered  why  his  known  deser- 
tion had  caused  so  little  stir  down  by  the  garri- 
son. The  soldier  still  paced  his  lonely  beat  in 
seemingly  meditative  mood;  the  sound  of  axes  at 
the  evening  wood  pile  sounded  loud  and  merrily. 
Loiterers  continue  walking  to  and  fro  in  their 
usual  gait,  the  tethered  ponies  nibbling  at  grass 
roots  about  the  outshirts — or  drooping  lazily;  even 
the  shaggy  wolf  dogs  were  basking  contentedly 
about  the  red  faced  scouts  quarters  oblivious  to  all 
the  living  world.  Perhaps  the  thought  came  to 
the  young  Mexican  how  little  he  was  to  this  globe 
and  perhaps  the  same  thought  flitted  across  the 
brain  of  his  sombre  hued  companion.  A  black, 
moonless  night  screened  the  last  act  in  Santa's 
life  play.  No  rehersal.  No  need  of  that.  A 
deadly  blow — a  mangled  body  and  all  was  over. 
Black  Fox  strode  into  Grand  River  Agency  next 
morning,  riding  the  Mexican's  steed  and  leading 
his  own.  Proud  man  of  war.  Within  twelve  hours 
he  had  captured  a  horse    and  won  a  feather. 


5m 


4;j^ 


\   Pioneee   Home. 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  DOG  DEN  RANGE. 
I 
TT  takes  all  kind  of  people  to  make  a   world," 
1  is  a  saying-  as  old  as  the  language  with  which 
it  is  spoken.      In  a  lesser  degree — lessened    only 
in  proportion  as  to  its    material    numbers — every 
separate  community  of  the  human  race  is  diversi- 
fied by  all  manner  and  shade  of  character. 

In  the  order  of  creation  by  the  light  given  us  we 
behold  a  great  variety  of  life — quadrupeds  of  the 
earth's  surface — birds  of  the  air,  and  fishes  in  the 
sea.  Though  all  around  and  about  us,  and 
breathing  the  air  with  us — warmed  by  the  same 
sun  of  light — subject  alike  to  soccora  winds  or 
frozen  blasts — yet  otherwise  each  and  all  of  these 
diversified  kinds  of  animal  life  live,  apparently,  in 
a  sphere  of  their  own.  Though  the  strong  prey 
upon  the  weak — the  vicious  upon  the  gentle,  yet 
in  all  the  generations  that  come  and  go  the  status 
of  animal  and  bird  life  remain  much  the  same. 
It  is  only  through  the  agency  of  man  or  some 
great  convulsion  of  the  earth's  surface  or  ravages 
of  some  special  epidemic,  when  the  equilbrium 
changes.  With  man  as  master  the  propagation 
or  destruction  of  many  of  these  animals,  bird  or 
fish  kinds  of  creation  are  subject  to  his  wishes 
and  may  survive  or  perish  at  his  will.  Entire 
species  may  at  his  pleasure  or  displeasure  disap- 
pear in  untimely  death.      But  do  they  go  forever? 


19  KALEID08COPIC  LH  E8 

!  ><><•>  death  end  all?  ci«>  ask  the  dark  skinned 
millions  of  humans  that  spread  themselves  over 
the  fertile  plains  of  Hindoostan;  along  the  popu- 
lous vales  of  the  cradle  of  civilized  man.  the  rivers 
Euphrates,  the  Indus  and  the  Ganges,  or  harken 
to  the  red  Indian  seers  of  the  Americas. 

( )r  to  delve  deeper  with  the  subject  in  its  pro- 
fundity as  such  would  deserve,  ask  the  intellectual 
giants  of  our  own  race — formost  among  thinkers, 
or  go  seek  the  tombs  of  the  sages  of  all  nations 
in  all  ages,  who  by  their  works  and  by  their  acts 
will  have  told  you  that  these  birds  of  the  air  and 
the  animals  of  the  fields,  woods  and  jungle,  long 
since  mouldering  with  the  dust  of  other  days,  did 
not  die — but  that  you,  my  reader  friend,  may  be 
one  of  them — in  the  evolving  changes  in  the  trans- 
migration of  souls. 

Thus  in  this  human  family  of  ours,  we  frequently 
mark  the  action  and  even  the  facial  countenance 
of  some  animal  of  the  four  footed  order.  Here 
and  there  among  our  kind,  we  see  the  industrious 
beaver  with  architectural  skill,  tiding  adverse  ele- 
ment which,  though  he  could  forsee  he  could  not 
hinder.  He  can  build  but  cannot  distroy.  He 
will  endure  suffering  but  will  not  revenge  himself 
by  inflicting  suffering  upon  others.  Alas;  that 
we  have  so  few  human  beavers  among  us. 

Then  comes  the  human  porcupine  who  never 
seeks  to  harm  others  until  first  assaulted.  Then 
he  strikes  back  with  fury.  He  resolves  himself 
into  a  catapult,  and  flings,  at  once,  a  shower  of 
sharpened  arrows  upon  his  adversaries. 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  DUG  DEN  RANGE.   50 

Then  we  see  the  crafty,  pointed  eared  fox,  who 
thrives  on  his  wits — head  work,  with  cold  calcu- 
lating points  well  in  hand  before  he  makes  his 
deadly  spring  upon  his  bewildered  victim.  He 
relies  as  much  for  his  success  on  the  stupidity  of 
his  intended  prey  as  upon  the  more  subtle,  moves 
of  his  own  cunning. 

Then  comes  the  cat  kinds — born  ingrates.  Sly, 
soft  in  tread,  gentle-voiced  with  moonish  face, 
pleasant  and  purring  in  the  presence  of  those  they 
would  destroy.  Through  creeping  on  velvet 
paws, — silent  as  a  falling  feather,  the  presence  of 
the  catman's  sinister  designs  is  often  betrayed  to 
those  he  would  wrong  by  a  softer,  subtler,  sub- 
conscious presence  we  call  a  presentiment, — a 
creeping  something  we  can  feel  and  yet  cannot 
see. 

Then  the  mycetes — howling  monkey— can  fre- 
quently be  met  with,  having  more  energy  in  voice 
than  in  action.  Then  the  sloth  rotting  in  his  lazi- 
ness, waiting  for  choice  vegetables  to  ripen — starv- 
ing or  sleeping  life  away  in  the  meantime.  Then 
we  see  the  kakau  in  its  reddish  brown,  basking  in 
the  tree  shade — pestered  by  insects  until  its  paws 
become  by  lapses  of  brain  action  almost  perpetual 
in  motion  as  though  the  swinging  of  arms  and 
motions  of  its  hands  were  the  only  relief  from 
torment.  Then  the  gazelle,  soft-eyed,  unsuspi- 
cious, innocent;  then  the  antelope,  by  times 
watchful  and  wary — by  times  a  victim  of  its  own 
curiosity  or  short  sightedness. 

The  animals  above  named  are  but  a  small  group 


51  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

•  it  th<-  tour  tooted  beasts  typified  in  human  souls. 
II  not  transanimation  is  it  absorption  ot  souls? 
It  absorption  is  it  entailed?  And  it  entailed,  is 
the  subtle  working  ot  the  human  mind  made 
clearer?  Transmigration  ot  soul  is  defined  as  the 
passage  of  soul  on  death  of  one  body. into  another 
horn  at  the  same  instant  without  reference  to 
species,  kind  or  kindred  Then  u herefrom  this 
manifold  duplixity  of  character  in  one  human 
breast.  The  human  beaver  of  to-day  transformed 
into  the  human  wolf  or  lynx  ot  to-morrow.  \Y  here- 
from, or  why  so,  the  promptings  of  these  kaleidos- 
copic lives  whose  duplicity  of  moves  mystify  even 
their  own  minds  by  inconsistency  of  action? 

II 

On  a  January  evening,  blustry  with  driving 
snow,  in  the  year  1894,  a  few  lounging  guests 
were  in  a  talking  mood  in  the  setting  room  of  the 
Merchants  hotel  Washburn,  McLean's  county 
capital,  North  Dakota.  Matters  religious,  philo- 
sophical and  speculative  passed  in  review  with  the 
group,  until  the  conversation  narrowed  down  to 
events  within  county  limits  and  to  a  historical  des- 
ertation  on  its  early  settlement  and  organization. 

"Do  you  remember  G one    of  our    first 

county  officers?"  queried  one  of  the  conversa- 
tionists, who  was — at  the  time — conducting"  the 
Washburn  flouring  mill. 

'Oh,  yes"  responded  another,  "he's  dead.  Died 
several  years  ago." 

"Not  so,"  said  the  first  speaker,  "and  I  will  tell 
you  why  I  know." 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  DOG  DEN  RANGE.   52 

Thus  with  the  miller's  introductory  narrative  on 
that  winter  evening,  and  the  writer's  after  trailing, 
I  herewith  present  places  and  characters  person- 
nel of  this  chronicle  of  Dog  Den  range. 

Ill 

It  was  in  the  year  1883,  some  months  after  its 
organization,  that  the  county  of  McLean  experi- 
enced what  in  popular  parlance  was  termed  a 
"boom,"  viz;  a  large  number  of  new  settlers  had 
arrived  and  made  themselves  homes  upon  the  var- 
ious tracts  of  vacant  lands  that  was  spread  out  be- 
fore them,  to  be  had  by  occupation  and  a  limited 
cultivation  of  the  land.  The  little  village  of 
Washburn  on  the  Missouri,  previously  spoken  of 
was  headquarters  for  both  the  land  squatter  and 
his  more  thrifty  co-adjutor  the  speculator.  South 
of  that  town  in  the  summer  of  the  year  above  re- 
ferred to,  a  party  of  land  hunters  made  camp  in 
what  was  known  as  Mill  coulee,  a  flouring  mill 
being  then  in  course  o(  erection  near  its  abrupt 
banks  on  the  bench  land  facing  the  Missouri. 

Of  this  party  our  chronicle  has  nothing  to  re- 
cord except  in  a  personal  way,  the  discriptive  out- 
line in  the  appearance  of  one  individual.  He  was 
about  fifty  years  of  age.  erect  in  carriage,  blue 
eyes,  and  hair  streaked  with  silver-  He  had  a 
restless  manner  and  in  conversation  exhibited 
scholarly  mind  with  a  range  of  current  informa- 
tion well  in  hand.  After  some  conversation  with 
the  leaders  of  the  county  organization  his  suburb 
equipment  in  that  line  suggested  him  a  proper 
person  for  the  office  of  register  of   deeds    and   as 


K  \.LEIDOSCOPI0  LI\  E8 

such  his.  name  appears  on   that   county's   records 
as  its  first  register. 

Hut  in  the  selection  of  his  homestead  he  had 
chosen  a  fertile  tract  around  the  shores  of  Lake 
Mandan,  in  another  county,  and  as  a  consequence 
of  the  law's  demand,  Mr.  G choose  to  re- 
sign his  office  rather  than  surrender  his  land. 

IV 

In  the  year  1S84.  the  great  ridge  or  "Hills  of 
the  Prairie"  (if  we  make  literal  translation  from 
the  French  name  applied  in  early  maps  of  the 
country)  was  as  yet  a  vast  tract  oi  vacant  land, 
as  far  as  human  habitation  was  concerned.  In  the 
early  summer  days  of  that  year,  an  adventurous 
stockman  moved  his  herds  in  the  neighborhood 
of  a  heavy  timbered  coulee,  a  few  miles  north  of 
the  Dog  Den  buttes — the  highest  point  of  land 
on  the  range.  The  ranch  location  was  pictur- 
esque. The  timbered  front  faced  a  great  grassy 
plain  to  the  eastward  terminating  miles  away  in 
the  tree  green  timber  line  of  Mouse  river  and  the 
high  jagged  hills  beyond.  The  towering  1,  ues 
of  the  Dog  Den  that  had  —  once  upon  a  time — 
stood  a  water  belted  island,  lashed  by  an  angry 
sea.  When  this  ranch  among  the  hills  was  com- 
pleted, and  the  cured  grasses  stacked  up  for  the 
snowy  days,  its  Virgina  proprietor  placed  a  man 
in  charge,  while  himself  and  residue  of  the  party 
hied  themselves  to  their  rendezvous  on  the  Mis- 
souri. The  man  in  charge  was  the  ex-register  of 
deeds  from  Washburn,  and  he  was  now  elected 
to  lead  a  hermit's  life.       His  only    neighbors    on 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  DOG  DEX  RANGE.   54 

the  range  were  a  mysterious  pair  located  imme- 
diately under  the  Dog  Den  butte,  and  had  hut 
recently  located  there.  They  had  proved  to 
be  a  pair  of  human  falcons  who  watch  their  in- 
tended prey  from  perch,  or  in  ariel  flight,  and  dart 
swiftly  on  their  victim.  For  this  had  they  buildec 
a  nest  in  a  heavy  ravine  on  the  seamed  sides  of 
these  historic  hills,  and  flew  to  other  lands  only 
when  the  melting  snows  uncovered, — for  others  to 
view — a  grusome  skeleton. 

A  rigorous  winter  of  deep  snow  was  the  ex-re- 
gister's initiation  into  a  hermit  ranchman's  life. 
In  the  intervals  between  caring  for  his  bovine 
herds  and  rustling  up  his  fuel,  he  had  but  little  to 
lighten  the  load  that  time  was  bearing  upon  him 
save  fitful  naps;  trying  to  appease  an  unsatisfied 
appetiie  or  dreaming  away  in  lonesome  reverie  in 
front  of  the  cheerful  glare  thrown  out  from  the 
blaze  on  his  hearthstone. 

V 

Up  to  1880  the  Souris  or  Mouse  river  "ox 
bow"  so  called  had  known  no  human  habitations 
other  than  the  skin  tepee  of  the  native  red  men 
or  the  "shacks"  of  their  half  cast,  half  wild  broth- 
ers. But  with  rumors  of  westward  extension  of 
continental  lines  a  few  pioneers  with  teams, 
wagons  and  household  effects  appeared  and  se- 
lected some  choice  locations  between  the  Riviere 
des  Lac  and  the  big  bend  of  the  Mouse  at  the 
mouth  of  the  shallow  waters  of  Wintering  river. 
Between  these  two  points  in  its  primitive  days 
were  several  groves  of  hardy  oaks    following    the 


S5  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

river's  course,  that,  in  summer  days,  looked  sub- 
limely beautiful.  The  dark  green  compact  groves 
of  oak  mingled  with  groups  of  the  lighter  green 
of  the  ash  or  lowly  willow.  Shutting  their  eyes 
and  closing  their  memories  to  the  rigors  of  its 
wintry  days,  the  valley  of  the  upper  Mouse  river, 
would  seem  a  veritable  paradise  to  the  summer 
time  homesteader. 

It  was  one  of  the  summer  days  of  ISS3,  that  a 
canvass  covered  wagon  with  a  stout  team  of 
horses  in  front,  came  slowly  trailing  over  the 
prairies  from  the  eastward  and  halted  near  one 
of  these  oak  groves  of  the  Souris.  The  horses 
were  unhitched  and  picketed  near  by,  and  the  oc- 
cupants of  the  vehicle — three  in  number — mean- 
dered to  the  top  of  a  nearby  bluff  to  look  about 
them.  Far  as  their  eyes  could  scan  was  a  prim- 
ival  solitude.  True,  a  bird  of  prey  now  and  then 
darted  from  some  leafy  coverlet;  a  red  deer  here 
and  there  went  trailing  in  the  open  to  disappear 
into  another  clump  as  quickly  as  it  had  come, 
but  these  incidents  alone  gave  diversity  to  a  still- 
ness as  though  it  was  a  painted  picture  spread 
out  on  an  artist's  canvass. 

We  hear  no  converse  now.  We  gaze  upon, — not 
listening  to  this  trio  on  the  hill.  In  one  we  see  a 
venerable  looking  man  in  the  youth  of  old  age. 
He  stood  out  erect  with  face  aglow,  with  spark- 
ling eyes  and  arms  in  constant  motion  as  though 
a  battery  indicator.  His  two  companions  were 
women — mother  and  daughter — if  we  judge  by 
appearance,  one  a  women  of  forty  or   more — the 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  DOG  DEN  RANGE.   56 

other  a  girl  of  fifteen.  They,  too,  had  a  happy 
look  for  it  was  decided  among  them  to  here  build 
themselves  a  home. 

Day  by  day  work  went  on  with  this  trio  of  the 
wilderness,  until  house  and  stables  were  finished. 
Then  they  looked  about  them  to  find  they  had 
been  followed  by  other  settlers  who  also  made 
choice  homes  along  the  Mouse  river  valley.  In 
the  year  that  followed,  habits  of  industry  brought 
forth  good  work.  Fields  of  grain,  pasturing  cat- 
tle, rooting  hogs,  bleating  lambs,  quaking  ducks, 
crowing  roosters  and  cacklinp  hens  made  this 
late  wilderness  solitude  seem  homelike. 

The  venerable  head  of  the  trio  just  described 
was  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  and  rode  out  among 
his  scattering  neighbors  preaching  the  good  word 
when  not  busy  cultivating  his  few  acres  of  rich 
and  respondent  soil.  To  ride  thus  among  the 
newcomers  of  the  valley,  he  deemed  a  duty  or- 
dained. To  radiate  with  the  happy — to  console 
the  disconsola'e — to  lighten  dark  paths  and  to 
cheer  and  to  guide  the  doubting,  and  lead  them 
on  a  better  way,  were  life  lines  in  this  good  man's 
work.  The  familiar  figure  encased  in  black,  with 
long  streaming  silvery  hair;  a  pleasant  nod  and 
cheery  word  for  every  passer  by,  linger  yet  in 
kind  memory  with  many  of  the  first  settlors  of  the 
Mouse  river  valley. 

VI 

One  August  day  in  the  year  1885,  there  came 
moving  down  upon  the  plain  from  the  ridges  of 
the  Dog  Den  range,  a  lone  horseman.      He    was 


57  KALEIDOSCOPIC   LIVES. 

riding  about  in  zigzag  trails,  seeking  depressions 
ol  land  or  "draws,"  as  though  searching  for  estrays 
from  some  herd.  Such,  indeed,  his  action:  proved 
for  the  horseman  was  none  other  than  the  hermit 
ranchman  from  Winston's  ranch  on  the  prairie 
mountains.  He  had  never  visited  the  vallej  of 
the  Mouse  before,  but  now  both  curiosity  and  duty 
impelled  him  onward  to  the  scattered  and  distant 
settlements,  where  here  and  there  mark  of  im- 
provements bordering  the  groves  of  timber  had 
caught  his  scanning  eyes.  As  he  rode  near  the 
dwellings,  the  green  potato  tops — the  creeping 
vines  of  melon  and  squash — the  tasseled  com 
with  its  jutting  ears  of  glossy  silk  were  of  more 
beauty  and  interest  to  this  man  from  the  Dog  Den 
than  was  any  other  sight  that  could  have  greeted 
his  vision.  He  thought  of  his  larder  at  the  ranch 
on  the  range,  that  he  had  left  as  bare — almost  — 
as  the  one  visited  by  Mother  Hubbard  in  song 
and  story.  The  memory  of  the  hard  dry  dough- 
gods,  jack  rabbit  soup  and  black  cuffee  that  had 
kept  his  spark  of  existence  aflame  all  the  long 
winters  and  variable  summers.  1  roughton  a  yearn- 
ing now  with  all  its  restraint  uncurbed. 

Thus  ruminating  as  he  moved  along,  he  espied 
ahead  of  him  a  neater  and  more  homelike  dwelling 
than  any  ofthe  other  homes  that  he  had  yet  passed, 
In  front  of  the  house  a  much  neater  and  thriftier 
patch  of  corn  was  noticed  than  any  he  had  yet 
met  with  in  the  valley. 

A  woman  with  a  well  shaded  sun  bonnet,  stood 
industriously  hoeing  among  the  corn,  oblivious  to 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  DOG  DEN  RANGE.   58 

all  surroundings.  The  man  on  horseback  invol- 
untarily paused,  saying  to  himself: 

"I've  gone  far  enough.  These  roasting  ears 
are  tempting  and  I  must  have  some.  I  shall  beg 
or  buy  an  armful  from  that  woman."  Thus  with- 
out more  adoo  he  rode  up  near  where  the  woman 
was  working  and  told  of  his  desires.  Something 
in  the  man's  voice  had  startled  her.  She  peered 
cautiously  from  her  half  closed  bonnet  at  the  un- 
kept  being  before  her.  "Was  it  possible?  No, 
it  could  not  be."  A  crimson  flush  crossed  her 
face,  but  the  bonnet  folds  saved  betrayal.  At 
length  the  woman  stammered  aloud: 

"Are  you  not  Mr.  T ." 

"Possibly,  possibly,"  replied  the  man  with  a 
startled  look,  "and  you,  and  you  are — " 

"Mrs.  H the  minister's  wife"  she  suppli- 

mented,  "but  you  must  get  down  and  come  to  the 
house  and  see  your  child.  Fourteen  years  is  a 
very  long,  long  time,"  she  said  in  an  absent  way. 

VII 

The  reverand  head  of  the  household  was  absent 
from  home  at  this  time.  He  was  riding  out  on 
his  accustomed  circuit  preaching  faith  hope  and 
charity  to  his  little  world  of  followers  and  be- 
lievers who  were  always  ready  to  hear  the  faithful 
churchman  expound  the  good  word. 

The  ranchman  and  minister  soon  after  met  and 
formed  an  acquaintance  with  each  other.  The 
former  became  restless  with  his  hermitage  among 
the  hills,  and  his  journeys  to  and  fro  across  the 
green  stretch  of  plains  to  the  shady  banks  of   the 


K  M.KIDoscol'lc   LIVES. 

mse,  were  both  frequenl  and  regular.  The 
minister  on  some  ol  these  visits  was  "at  home"  to 
hi->  guest,  who  had  explained  his  frequenl  appear- 
ance there  with  a  gloomy  worded  retrospect  of 
his  bachelor  lilt-  on  ihe  lonely  mountains  <>!  the 
prairie 

In  whatever  way  the  door  of  friendship  was 
left  ajar;  by  what  manner  the  screen  of  the  bou- 
doir was  pulled  aside  we  know  not.  We  know- 
only  that  the  minister's  wife,  heretofore  so  de- 
votedly attached  to  her  frontier  home  became 
suddenly  discontented.  The  joys  of  home  became 
distastful,  as  here  presented.  A  vision  —  vague 
and  unreal  at  lirst,  but  with  brighter  colors  and 
many  fantastic  shapes  as  it  appeared  again  and 
avain  to  this  woman's  wandering  mind.  To  see 
and  be  seen  by  strange  people  in  a  crowded  city; 
education  for  her  growang  daughter — ease  for 
herself  and  a  longing  for  change — all  worked  to- 
ward a  blending  or  concentration  of  shifting  ideals 
floating  in  an  orbit.  Strangely  enough  the  her- 
mit ranchman,  also,  saw  the  necessity  of  change. 
He,  too,  would  leave  the  land  of  isolation  and 
abide  in  a  city  by  the  Rocky  Mountains.  In  its 
incipiency  this  subject  of  change  of  residence  was 
kept  from  the  head  of  the  family,  b  it  as  the  time 
for  action  approached,  he  was  gently  apprised  of 
it.  The  old  gentleman  consented  to  a  change  of 
home  with  great  reluctance  He  was  contented 
and  happy  in  his  surroundings  and  did  not  want 
to  tread  hidden  paths  too  far.  I  lad  no  desires  to 
change  the  known  for  the   unknown.       Why    not 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  DUG  DEN  RANGE.   GO 

leave  well  enough  alone?  The  tactful  wife  was 
equal  to  every  emergency  and  smoothed  down 
every  objection  from  her  devoted  husband.  She 
kindly  planned  a  way  to  soften  the  proposed 
change.  The  good  minister  was  advised,  in  as 
much  as  he  had  not  visited  among  his  relatives  in 
the  far  east  for  many  years  the  time  was  propi- 
tious to  do  so.  During  his  absence  the  sale  of 
property  and  the  packing  up  and  other  incidents 
of  a  confusing  period  would  be  lilted  from  the 
careworn  shoulders  of  the  venerable  man.  When 
he  came  again  he  would  find  them  in  their  cozy 
home  in  the  Rocky  Mountain  city.  The  minister 
was  speedily  assisted  to  be  off  upon  his  eastern 
journey  with  many  well  wishes  that  the  good 
angels  protect  him  on  his  way. 

VIII 

In  due  time  after  much  bustle  and  confusion  the 
change  of  location  by  the  minister's  wife  and  her 
daughter  came  to  pass.  A  handsome  and  nicely 
furnished  house  in  the  mountain  city  of  Butte  had 
been  put  in  preparation  for  their  coming.  The 
now  thoroughly  interested  hermit  ranchman  of  the 
Dog  Den  had  preceeded  them  many  days  and 
put  things  in  order. 

Time  passed  happily  for  the  trio.  The  bracing 
autumn  days  glided  smoothly  with  the  newcomers 
and  diversity  from  their  former  manner  of  life 
was  hailed  with  the  same  delight  that  would  effect 
the  deliverance  from  distasteful  task  by  broken 
shackHs  to  some  maltreated  bondman. 

But  other  changes  must  come  now.     The  time 


61  K  \LKllx  >SCOPIC  LIVES. 

arrived  when  the  minister's  visit  to  the  far 
cast  should  end  by  the  limitation  previously  put 
upon  it.  A  letter  had  been  received  by  his  wife 
with  the  number  <-t  train  and  date  ol  day  when 
he  might  be  expected. 

At  the  promised  time  the  long  jointed  west 
bound  train  moved  slowly  up  to  the  depot  at 
Butte.  Among  the  jostling  passengers  that  came 
crowding  down  from  a  car  platform  was  an  elderly 
gentleman  with  a  nervous  manner,  clad  in  a  gar- 
ment of  sombre  hue.  He  was  recognized  by  two 
persons  in  waiting  seats — the  minister's  wife  ami 
the  hermit  ranchmen  of  the  Dog  Den  range,  who 
arose  to  meet  the  minister — (or  it  was  he.  But 
in  the  lady's  greeting  a  wifely  salution  was  want- 
ing. She  leaned  upon  the  preacher's  right  arm 
while  the  politic  ranchmen  stood  escort  in  wait- 
ing on  his  left,  taking  the  wearied  old  gentleman's 
grip  in  one  hand  with  feigned  courtesy  tendered 
his  arm  and  the  trio  for  a  minute  or  more  walked 
along  the  sidewalk  in  silence. 

UI  may  as  well  tell  you  now,"  said  the  ex- 
ranchman  from  the  Dog  Den,  addressing  the 
minister,  "this  is  my  wife  not  yours."  "But,"  he 
went  on,  "you  can  have  a  home  with  us,  just  as 
before;  you  can  have  a  room;  you  will  l>e  welcome 
at  our  table — only  remember  she  is  my  wife — not 
yours." 

The  sudden  and  entirely  unexpected  words 
fell  with  the  force  of  a  terrific  blow  upon  the  heart 
of  the  guileless  old  man.  No  lurid  bolt  of  un- 
chained lightening    from    lowering    clouds    could 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  DOG  DEN  RANGE.   62 

have  been  more  overwhelming — less  immediately 
falal.  Mis  trembling  limbs  grew  weak— his  pal* 
sied  tongue  refused  to  give  forth  words,  and  he 
could  only  turn  and  stare  appealingly  to  his  wife. 
The  woman  turned  her  face  from  the  stricken 
husband  as  the  tender  hearted  child  will  turn  its 
head  from  the  dying  gasps  of  some  dear  pet  of 
its  childish  hours.  She  would  soothe  but  could 
not.      She  could  relent  but  would  not. 

IX 
Back  on  the  Mouse  river.  Back  to  the  old  pio- 
neer farm,  the  veteran  minister  had  paced  his 
way.  Let  us  follow  the  old  man  as  he  stalks 
about  the  homestead  of  his  creation  like  a  spectre 
on  the  eve  of  twilight.  Resting  his  weary  head 
upon  a  stone  underneath  the  leafless  branches  of 
an  ancient  oak,  in  unquieting  trance  of  past 
events  we  will  extract  the  story  that  is  drawing 
his  life  away.  Let  us  listen  to  his  mumbling  as  he 
sleeps:  Sixteen  years  ago  a  contented  paster — a 
faithful  flock — a  happy  home  underneath  stately 
sycamores, — by  the  side  of  a  wide,  swift  flowing 
river.  Back  to  that  morning  of  sorrow  when  con- 
fiding members  of  his  congregation  whispered  to 
him  the?  startling  details  of  a  crime  and  the  flight 
of  the  perpretrator;  o(  an  abandoned  wife  and 
new  born  child  buffeting  waves  of  reproach,  neg- 
lect and  poverty.  Of  his  own  thoughts  as  to  his. 
plain  line  of  duty  in  the  premises  as  a  man  of 
God,  with  a  natural,  sympathetic  heart  for  dis- 
tress in  the  unbidden  calamities  of  the  unfortunate. 
Come  one,  two,  three,  four,  five  or  yet  six    years. 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

and  no  word  from    recreant    husband    and    father 
save  an  uncontradicted  word  that  he  was  dead. 

Meantime  the  minister's  interest  in  the  forsaken 
woman  drifted  beyond  the  sympathetic  and  had 
glided  into  the  tangled  and  inexplicable  bonds  of 
love  Phe  forlorn  one  reciprocated  with  gratitude 
lor  effection — attention  given  tor  kindness  be- 
stowed. There  is  no  love  without  affection,  but 
is  there  not  affection  without  love?  Yon  who 
are  wise  in  the  heart's  secrets,  make  answer. 

X 

It  might  have  been  a  year  or  more  after  the 
closing  events  just  narrated,  when  an  old  man 
was  noticed  boarding  the  eastern  bound  midnight 
express  on  the  Great  Northern,  at  the  first  station 
beyond  the  Souris.  The  lighted  train  glides  rapidly 
across  the  dark  prairies — the  grating  of  wheels — 
the  bumping  of  coaches  over  the  uneven  bed — 
the  screaching  of  the  locomotive  whistle  at  way- 
side stations  or  danger  signals  at  dubious  cross- 
ings, all  tend  to  "make  a  night  of  it"  for  the  lone- 
some passenger.  After  slowing  up  in  crossing 
over  the  great  arches  of  the  Mississippi  bridge 
the  conductor  of  the  train  found  this  passenger's 
compartment  vacated.  A  part  of  a  crumpled  let- 
ter with  a  late  postmark,— and  evidently  penned 
by  a  feminine  hand,  in  which  the  following  scraps 
rejointed,  tells  its  own  story: 

Dear  Mr.  H ;     I  take  my  pen  to   ask   may 

we  come  to  you  again     1  direct  this  letter  to  M. 

in  which  neighborhood  I  hope  you  now  are. 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  DOG  DEN  RANGE.   64 

Ed.  is  dead.  He  followed  his  trade  as  bricklayer 
after  you  went  away.  One  month  ago  yesterday, 
he  went  to  work  as  usual.  In  mounting  a  ladder 
to  the  scaffolding,  he  had  nearly  reached  the  top, 
when  a  fellow  workman  heard  him  say  "I'm  going 
blind,"  and  immediately  fell  backward  and  down- 
ward— and  was  picked  up  from  the  ground  a  man- 
gled corpse. 

Myra  sends  her  love  to  you.  I  do  hope  you  will 
forgive  if  you  cannot  forget.  Please  write  at  once. 
From  your  heartbroken  and  sorrowing . 

"Cheated  himself  by  shortening  a  paid  ride," 
said  the  train's  conductor,  carelessly,  as  he  threw 
down  the  crumpled  bits  of  writing,  on  the  non  re- 
appearance of  the  apparently  absent-minded  pas- 
senger. 

Out  in  the  blackness  of  night  for  a  pathless 
walk  where  anywhere  lead  to  everywhere.  Out, 
and  on,  heartstricken  one, — the  mantle  of  dark- 
ness envelope  and  environ  you.  Though  you 
may  have  hidden  your  drossy  covering  of  clay,  by 
forest  of  tamarack;  in  a  bottomless  swamp  or  an 
un-traversed  plain,  the  sleepless  special  will  find 
and  uncover  you  at  the  finality,  and  black  news- 
paper headlines  make  record  of  another  "eccentric 
and  lonely  old  man  found  dead." 


Old  Washburn  Mill. 


[SSI  IM.   I!  LTIONS  TO  THE  FORT  BERTHOLD  IM'I  INS. 
[Fro  n  a  Photo  by  Morrow  in  1870.] 


BLAZING  A  BACKWARD  TRAIL 

SOME  months  after  the  Sioux  Indian  outbreak 
in  Minnesota  on  that  fateful  18th  of   August, 
1862,  measures  were  taken  by  the  State  govern- 
ment  of  Iowa    looking    to   a  better  protection  of 
their  northwestern  border  from  incursions  of   de- 
tached war  parties  from    the    main    camps    of  the 
hostiles.      Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg  had  not  yet 
been  fought  in  the  Southern  war,  the  federal  gov- 
ernment was  loth  to  spare  troops  from  the   front, 
and  the  States   within   the    bounds    of  the    Indian 
insurrection    were   enjoined    to    raise    troops  lor 
their  own  protection,  beyond  some  skeleton    reg- 
iments   officered    by    commanders    who  had  pre- 
viously experienced  some  service  in   Indian    cam- 
paigns on  the  far  western  plains.      In  addition    to 
two  regiments  of   Iowa  volunteer  cavalry  already 
mustered  in  the  United  Stales  service,  Col.  James 
Sawyer,  of  Sioux  city  raised  a  mounted  batallion 
of  bot-dermen  for  defence  along  the  northwestern 
part  of  that  State,      Though  originally  raised   for 
local  defense  only,  in   September,  1863   the    com- 
mand was  re  organized  and  placed  upon  the  same 
status  as  other  volunteer  cavalry — and  to  do  dutv 
out  of  the  State  as    well    as    within    its    borders 
when  called  upon.      A  line   of  double    bastioned 
posts    were    constructed    beginning    at    the   Fort 
Dodge  &  Sioux  City  stage  crossing  of   the   West 


«:  KALEIDOSCOPIC    LIV1 

Fork  oi   Little  Sioux  river  and  extending   in    forti- 

CI 

fied  chain  to  Esterville  on  the  Minnesota  State 
line.  Beginning  with  the  one  at  West  Fork 
which  was  within  twenty  miles  of  Sioux  City,  one 
was  established  at  Correctionville    on    the    Little 

Sioux  river  proper — one  at  Cherokee  thirty  miles 
further  up  stream;  one  at  Peterson  twenty  miles 
further  along,  and  one  at  the  Spirit  Lake. 

I'pon  the  reorganization  of  the  battallion  the 
writer  found  himself  in  transfer  from  an  eastern 
command  and  was  stationed  at  the  Correctionville 
post — called  Fort  White  in  honor  of  its  company 
commander.  The  soldier  duties  were  divided 
between  detail  for  scouting  service,  construction 
and  hay  making  parties.  The  water  was  good, 
climatic  conditions  fine  and  the  exercise  exhilera- 
ting  and  healthful. 

(  )n  one  of  the  closing  days  of  September,  when 
haying  was  well  finished,  a  group  of  the  soldiers  led 
forth  some  of  their  spry  and  well  groomed  charg- 
ers lor  a  trial  of  speed  upon  the  race  course,  east 
of  the  fort.  While  engaged  in  this  sport,  a  small 
sized  man  mounted  upon  a  venerable  ill  shaped 
pony  rode  up  to  the  excitable  group  of  money 
chancers.  Besides  his  rediculous  looking  mount, the 
man  wore  an  ill  fitting  suit  of  clothes,  topped  off 
with  an  old  slouch  hat—  points  well  down— and  for 
all  the  world  looked  the  mounted  dummy  about  to 
close  a  circus  performance.  Everybody  greeted 
him  with  a  laugh  in  which  he  seemed  to  heartily 
join.  I  le  bet  his  money  freely  upon  the  racers, 
and.  as  happened  in  most  cases,  lost. 


BL1ZING    A    BACKWARD  TRAIL.  68 

The  orderly  sergeant  of  the  company — a  man 
of  middle  age  and  rotund  physique — was  an  in- 
veterate .gamester  and  prided  himself  on  his  keen 
wit.  Me  jokingly  offered  to  run  on,  foot  against 
■the  steed  of  the  stranger  for  a  five  dollar  green- 
back provided  the  stranger  done  his  own  jockwng. 
As  all  hands  want»d  to  see  the  race  on,  the  stran- 
ger cheerfully  covered,  the  orderly  sergeant's  five 
with  a  new  treasury  issue.  Much  to  the  surprise  of 
all   the  pony  and  its  rider  won  by  a   bare  scratch. 

The  victor  then  rode  up  t  >  the  company  officer's 
quarters,  asked  to  have  his  name  put  upon  the 
company's  rolls.  He  gave  in  his  name  as  Smith, 
but  whether  the  prefix  was  John,  lames  or  William 
we  no  longer  remember.  On  account  of  his  un- 
der size  -having  a  somewhat  diininative  appear- 
ance, or  for  his  littler  pony,  had  already  been  jug- 
handled  by  the  buys  and  was  known  as  Pony  Smith. 

Pony,  being1  a  round  shouldered,  bow  legged, 
burlesque  specimen  of  humanity,  with  clownish 
ways  was  quite  a  favorite  with  many,  though 
some  were  victims  of  his  boorish  practical  jokes. 
The  writer  though  somewhat  chummy  with  Pony 
was  one  of  his  victims — and  a  long  suffering  one — 
had  vowed  to  pick  a  big;  black  crow  with  him  if  ever 
they  came  together  again  in  this  broad  old  world. 
The  orderly  sergeant,  however,  never  forgave 
this  recruit  from  the  day  of  the  pony-foot  race, 
and  after  many  passes  oi  ill-tempered  repartee, 
poor  Pony  Smith  was  banished  over  to  the  West 
Pork,  the  Botany  Pay  of  the  State  company  chain. 
Mere  he  remained  like  Napoleon  on  Helena's  isle 


K  AI-KIIm  SO  'IMC  I.I  VKS 
until  after  the  mustering  out  ol   the  batalhon 

After  an  absence  ol  over  thirty  long  years,  the 
writer  crossed  over  thr  iron  bridge  across  Big 
Sioux   river    from    the    west    in  retrospect.      I  he 

little  town  of  Sioux  City — that  was — which    clns 
tered  around  the  old  steamboat  landing  stood  out 

a  magnificent  city  spread  back  upon  the  hills 
Great  buildings  of  brick  and  marble  had  supplant- 
ed the  log  and  frame  structures  of  the  days  of 
the  Sioux  outbreak.  Electric  lights  and  trolly 
cars  had  run  out  the  street  lamp  and  the  omni- 
bus. 

While  standing  in  wonderment  where  the  old 
Hagy  House  had  stood,  1  saw  along  funeral  train 
slowly  passing  up  the  street.  A  pioneer  judge 
was  being  taken  to  his  last  resting  place.  Close 
following  the  hearse — bowed  down  in  medatalive 
thought  rode  a  cluster  of  old  white  headed  men, 
the  Bogues,  the  Hedge:;,  the  Hagys'  of  long 
ago, — comb  gatherers  and  makers  of  this  human 
hive.  In  remembering  their  vigorous  physical 
frames  and  mental  push  of  thirty  years  before, 
and  now  gazing  upon  the  listless  eyes  and  fur 
rowed  cheeks  of  these  broken  men  following  one 
of  '.heir  own  group  to  the  grave — each  as  silent 
as  the  enshrouded  occupant  of  the  hearse,  I  could 
almost  fancy  their  bloodless  lips  were  repeating: 

"We  are  passing  away, 

We  are  passing  away 

To  that  great  judgment  day." 

I  had  looked  in  vain  for  one  face  in  that  group 


BLAZING  A  BAGKW*AM>  TRAIL.  To 

— Col.  Jim  Sawyer — and  setting  myself  down  o>i 
a  seat  under  the  varanda  of  a  comfortable  fools-try 
its  venerable  proprietor — himself  a  pioneer- 
chequed  off  time  incidents  concerning  members 
of  our  old  frontier  soldier  organization  that  I 
attentive-ly  listened  to,  after  an  absence  in  person 
and  lack  of  all  information  concerning  their  where- 
abouts for  over  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

Col.  Jim  Sawyer  had  played  hit  and  miss  with 
business  many  years  alter  the  close  of  the  civil 
war  until  his  worldly  possessions  were  wrapped 
up  in  the  proprietorship  of  a  ferry  boat.  This 
would  have  been  all  right  had  the  boat  stayed 
above  water,  which,  unfortunately  for  the  Colonel 
did  not.  <  He  had  stood  upon  the  levee  and 
wat clued  his  boat  go  down  beneath  the  muddy 
waves  of  the  Missouri,  and  himself  reduced  to 
poverty — the  boat  being  so  rickety  no  company 
would  insure.  Though  the  waters  had  swallowed 
up  the  remnants  of  his  fortune  it  had  left  him  his 
grit.  His  age  at  that  time  was  about  sixty 
years — a  time  of  life  when  the  ordinary  man 
drops  out  from  active  life  and  sits  down;  a  time 
of  life  for  some  people  thus  stricken  in  misfortunfe 
who  would  have  staggered  and  wilted  under  the 
strain,- crawled  in  their  bunks  and  called  loudly 
on  the  old  man  with  the  scythe  to  hit  hard  a  lick 
for  keeps.  Not  so  with  Colonel  Sawyer.  By  hook 
and  by  crook  he  raised  a  little  means  and  hied 
himself  off  to  the  mining  regions  of  Arizonia. 
Ten  years  later  he  had  been  heard  from    through 


:i  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

some  financial  institution.  I  I-is  rating  was  away 
up  then. — climing  close  to  that  of  a  millionare. 
Our  old  captain,  after  whom  Fort  White  was 
named  had  died  a  bankrupt  in  New  Orleans.  ( )ne 
ot  our  lieutenants  was  a  prominent  citizen  of  the 
neighboring  town  of  Onawa.  Corporal  Ordway, 
was  living  happily  with  his  wife  and  their  daugh- 
ters out  on  Maple  river.  The  orderly  sergeant 
had  died  in  a  Minnesota  town  of  two  much  "wo- 
man on  the  brain."  His  tormentor,  Pony  Smith, 
was  living  somewhere  along  the  Sioux  valley, 
informant  did  not  know  just  where  but  thought  I 
might  meet  him  iu  my  travels.  Of  the  Comstock 
brothers,  two  were  dead  and  one  insane.  Pioneer 
Perry  lived  a  batchelor  hermit  on  the  lower  Sioux 
Many  others  were  dead  or  moved  away  and  never 
where  heard  from.— and  so  the  list  ran. 

A  bright  and  warm  July  day  after  a  few  days 
of  wonder  seeing  in  this  big  Iowa  town,  I  drove 
out  alone  in  a  buckboard  rig  trying  to  recognize 
something  familiar  along  the  old  Fort  Dodge 
stage  trail.  The  Floyd  stream  was  passed  after 
which  a  vain  look  for  recognition  was  had  of  the 
old  Hunkerford  place, — once  the  outward  farm  of 
the  environed  settlement.  Twenty-nine  years 
before  I  had  followed  this  trail  for  forty  miles  with 
but  one  sheltered  house  between,  and  with  the  ex- 
ception of  those  at  the  West  Fork  crossing  not 
a  tree  or  a  bush  even,  to  be  seen.  Nought  but 
immovable  billows  to  view  in  a  great  prairie  sea. 
But  on  this  view  retrospect,  fine  farm  houses  and 
beautiful  groves  of  green  trees  were  to  met   with 


BLAZING  A  BACKWARD  TRAIL  72 

or  noted  wherever  our  greeting  eyes  fcurned—  the 
pony's  a*nd  mine.  Over  on  the  West  Fork,  the 
very  personation  of  loneliness  in  frontier  days,  is  a 
garden  now  and  beautiful  to  behold.  A  mile  or 
two  down  from  the  old  State  company  stockade, 
now  placidly  sits  the  town  of  Moville  with  long 
trains  of  loaded  cars  passing  and  repassing,  sig- 
nalling their  presence  in  a  wreath  of  smoke  or  in 
the  loud  screech  of  the  steam  whistle. 

A  few  miles  north  eastward  of  the  West  Fork, 
the  abrupt  ridges  mark  a  near  approach  to  the 
Liule  Sioux  valley,  proper.  Every  change  from 
ihe  primitive  days  of  the  borderman  was  noted 
and  every  innovation  interesting.  The  sheep 
flocks,  the  hog  droves  the  herds  of  cattle  that 
were  feeding  upon  the  hills  and  vales  were  once 
we  had  roamed  in  quest  of  the  herd  remnants  of 
the  elk  and  the  antelope. 

A  tine,  sleeking  looking  drove  of  hogs  drew  my 
attention.  The  old  fellows  of  the  bunch  appeared 
languid  from  fat  carrying  and  the  little  chubby 
porkers'  tails  seemed  to  curl  over  their  backs 
more  proudly  than  those  previously  seen  along 
the  route,  so  on  noting  their  care  taker  had  a  self 
satisfied  air,  I  opened  up  the  conversation: 

•  Well  my  friend  you  have  a  large,  healthy  look- 
ing drove  of  porkers  here." 

"Big  drove  of  hogs  you  say  mister,"  replied 
the  swine  herder,  "why  you  ought  to  see  Moon's 
piggery  above  Correctionville!" 

Passing  further  up  the  deep  cut  roads  I  noted 


KALKllHK^COPIC    LIVES. 

a  particularly  neat  (arm  house  with  a  suitable  ad- 
junct <>t  outbuildings  with  an  inticeing  looking 
water  trough  to  a  very  dry  pony.  The  farmer 
came  out  from  a  nearby  building  on  my  approach. 
and  finding;  him  in  a  talkative  mood,  I  plied  him 
with  some  questions: 

"Your  neighbors  all  look  prosperous  here-,"  I 
said,  "they  must  have  good  bank  accounts." 

"O,  no."  replied  the  farmer,  "not  many — a  few 
of  our  people  have  some  mrmey  in  bank.     There 
is   Mr.  Moon    above   Correctionville — he  usually 
has  a  good  many   thousands   deposited   with   the 
banks — but  then  he  is  an  exception." 

A  further  drive  of  a  half  hour  or  more  and  I 
sit  rigidly  from  my  seat  in  the  buckboard — and  for 
a  moment  scanned  up  and  down  the  valley  of  the 
Little  Sioux — a  stranger  to  a  familiar  land.  Two 
lines  of  railway  strung  out  from  a  compact  town 
where  Fort  White  had  stood.  Green  trees  yet 
fringed  the  river  and  nestled  up  in  the  sheltered 
pockets  of  the  uplands.  I  made  inquiry  concern- 
ing the  farms  and  was  pointed  out  a  magnificant 
appearing  place  and  fortunately  found  its  propri- 
etor taking  his  ease  in  a  rocker  on  the  poarch. 

I  introduced  my  subject  bluntly: 

'They  tell  me  you  own  two  thousand  acres  of 
land  here — and  two  thousand  acres  covers  a  great 
deal  of  soil." 

''Well,  yes,"  replied  the  landowner  "two  thou- 
sand acres  is  all  right  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  there 
is  Moon  above  Correctionville,  —  he  has  seven 
thousand    acres  of  land,  and  all  in  one  body." 


BLAZING   A  BACKWARD  TRAIL.  74 

Bidding  the  land  owner  adieu,  I  followed  along 
the  valley  road  some  distance  in  parallel  lines 
with  the  railway  grade,  then  crossing  the  track 
and  over  the  iron  structure  that  spanned  the 
Little  Sioux  river  facing  Correctionville  from  the 
south.  As  the  dull  sounds  from  the  pony's  hoofs 
intermingled  in  the  stillness  of  the  air  with  the 
gurgling  waters,  past  memories  rose  unbidden  to 
distress  the  mind  and  grate  upon  the  restful  heart. 
Memories  with  all  its  fitful  shadows  of  gaiety  and 
gloom — hope  and  dispair  that  had  marked  the 
day  dreams  of  thirty-three  and  thirty  years  before, 
now  again  brought  vividly  to  mind  at  the  familiar 
sight  of  the  stony  bed  river,  the  basswood  groves 
and  sweet  songs  of  musical  birds.  Almost  un- 
consciously I  had  halted  on  the  further  arch  of 
the  long  high  bridge  and  gazed  backward  and 
across  on  the  opposite  shore  as  though  to  catch 
one  more  glimpse  of  the  pick-garbed,  pale  faced 
maid,  who  had  once  in  fancy  stood  with  bared 
feet  upon  the  marginal  waters  by  rock  and  brush 
to  reveal  some  warning  events  yet  to  come.  This, 
though  but  the  record  of  a  dream  of  thirty  years 
gone,  its  revelation  had  been  faithfully  perfect  in 
all  detail. 

Up  the  road  and  on  a  rise  of  ground  where 
Fort  White  had  stood.  What  do  we  see?  No 
stockade — no  turreted  bastons— nor  a  log  or  a 
stone  even,  marked  the  spot  where  the  frontier 
fort  had  stood.  Instead,  around  and  about  the 
environed  plain    nestled  a  town  of  2000  people. 


75  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

\:  ofi€  ol  the  large  hoteb  I  m<-i  an  only  re 
minder  of  nr  closing  experience  in  early  Correc 
tionville.  An  old  ami  tottering  inebriate,  whose 
faltering,  sell  betrayel  in  our  presence, reminded  us 

of  the  old  saw  "that  a  guilty  conscience  need  no  ac- 
cuser. 'Further  in  that  man's  case  silence  is  charity. 

Through  the  handsome  burg  and  out  along  the 
Cherokee  trail  we  noted  great  changes  and  at  a 
bend  in  the  river  met  a  couple  of  husky  boys  with 
a  small  drove  of  apparently  unmanageable  steers. 

"Boys,"  1  ventured  to  remark,  "You  have  a 
very  unruly  herd  to  manage." 

"Herd  h ,"  tartly  replied    one   of  the  lads, 

"go  on  up  and  see  Moon's  big  bunch  if  you  want 
to  see  a  herd. 

Passing  along  through  ravines  and  across  cul- 
vereted  roads  I  drew  reins  in  front  of  Mr.  Moon's 
house,  to  which  I  had  been  directed  by  his  neigh- 
bor.--, and  after  a  critical  survey  of  the  Sioux  val- 
ley magnate  of  so  many  leading  parts,  made  my- 
self known  to  him,  received  a  generous  welcome 
and  was  his  guest  for  a  couple  of  days.  Taking 
a  walk  with  the  proud  proprietor  to  view  over  his 
vast  and  unincumbered  land  possessions  and  to 
see  his  herds  of  shorthorns  and  long  longhorns — 
Percherons  and  Clydesdales — Poland-China  s  and 
Chester  Whites,—  and  in  a  daze  of  admiration  for 
all  I  had  seen, — with  a  burst  of  inquisitive  inquiry 
after  all  I  had  known, — patted  Mr.  Moon  with  old 
time  familarity  on  his  hard  round  shoulders,  in  a 
bandying  way,    blurted    out: — 

'Pony — old  boy — when  did  you  hook  on  to  this 
name  oi   Moon?" 


BLAZING  A  BACKWARD  TRAIL.  70 

Out  upon  the  road  again — now  over  hills  and 
in  sight  of  thrifty  towns — now  down  in  the  valley 
of  the  almost  Indian  trail  of  State  company  days. 
The  only  habitable  dwelling  in  those  days  in  the 
valley  between  Correction ville  and  Cherokee — 
distance  thirty  miles — was  the  Pary  homestead. 
The  soldiers  were  under  many  obligations  to  the 
hospitable  pair  who  had  here  built  themselves  a 
home.  Answers  to  inquiry  told  me  the  old  gen- 
tleman had  been  resing  under  green  sods  for  many 
a  long  day,  but  the  old  lady  then  passing  seventy 
years  survived  and  was  near  by,  so  called  for  the 
last  time  to  pay  my  respects  to  her,  and  on  hehalf 
of  my  soldier  comrades  thank  her  for  the  kind- 
ness she  had  ever  shown  toward  us. 

Then  loomed  up  the  town  ot  Cherokee  with  its 
three  thousand  people.  Thirty  years  before,  on 
my  last  adieu  to  this  town  less  than  half  dozen 
families  comprised  its  inhabitants,  but  it  was  then 
as  now  a  county  capital.  In  those  days  of  the 
sixties,  besides  the  soldier  garrison  were  many 
voting  men,  but  only  two  girls  of  marriageable  ao-e 
in  the  town.  One  a  modest  little  maid,  daughter 
of  the  hotel  proprietor  kept  noboddy's  company 
but  her  mamma's.  The  other  young  lady  was 
delighted  with  attention  from  many  earnest  woo- 
ers. She  had  engaged  herself  to  be  married  to 
the  corporal  commanding  the  post,  and  while  he. 
was  absent  purchasing  a  trosseau  for  the  nuptial 
event,  she  met  the  advances  of  another  soldier 
and  married    him   before  the   return  of  affianced 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  lives. 

husband  that  was  to  have  been.  It  was  a  case  of 
inexcusable  deception  on  the  girl's  part  as  we  had 
rendered  judgment  then,  and  much  sympathy  felt 
tor  the  young  commander  for  his  misplaced  confi- 
dence. I  now  inquired  of  some  old  rimers  of  the 
after  days  of  this  coquettish  woman,  and  learned 
she  had  made  a  miserable  life  for  herself  by  her 
misadventure.  A  few  years  of  unhappy  married 
life  she  had  been  left  to  shift  for  herself,  with  a 
lot  of  children  to  raise  and  care  for. 

As  author  and  publisher  of  two  little  books  one 
which  I  was  introducing  into  public  and  private 
libraries;  had  been  told  by  a  newspaper  editor 
there,  that  a  banker's  wife  was  treasurer  and  gen- 
eral manger  of  Cherokee's  public  library,  and  ad- 
vised my  calling  on  the  lady,  as  perfatory  thereto. 

Accordingly,  acting  on  the  suggestion,  I  saun 
tered  wonderingly  along  a  shade-lined  boulevard, 
until  coming  in  front  of  a  beautiful  and  costly  re 
sidence  that  looked  the  ideal  banker's  home,  and 
sent  up  my  card  to  the  mistress  of  this  mansion. 

"So  your  book  has  something  to  say  about 
early  Cherokee  history"  the  lady  said,  after  I  had 
introduced  the  object  of  my  call,  "what  is  it  facts 
or  romance?" 

"A  little  of  both,  perhaps"  I  answered. 
"I   will   get  your   book    for  the   library,"     she 
rejoined,     "but   I  guess    I  was  living    here  in  this 
town   before  you  ever  you  saw  it!" 

Then  dawned  light.  Bidding  the  lady  adieu,  I 
passed  out  under  the  silver  maples,  drawing  on 
a  nearly  forgotten  memory  of  past  events,  "I  have 
it  now"  I  murmered,  softly  "I  have  been  talking 
to  this  town's  first  hotel  keeper's  daughter — to 
mamma's  girl'  of  early  Cherokee." 


of  two  asAvas  in  the  black  hills. 

DURING  the  winter  of"  1869-70,  while  passing 
that  inclement  season  among  the  woodchop- 
pers  and  adventurers  assembled  at  Toughtimber 
Point.now  Hancock,  N.  D.—  I  made  acquaintance 
with  a  light  limbed  Texan  cowboy.  While  born 
and  raised  on  the  plains  of  Texas,  the  young  man 
had  put  in  some  time  among  the  vineyards  of 
lower  California  and  also  a  few  years  in  the  stock 
ranges  of  eastern  Oregon.  Then  an  adventurous 
trip  across  the  mountains  of  Montana  to  the  head- 
waters of  the  Missouri  river,  with  a  short  sojourn 
and  an  inkling  of  life  with  the  professional  woifers 
of  Milk  River  Valley.  Later  he  had  drifted  down 
the  Missouri  and  became  a  transient  in  one  of 
Iowa's  famed  towns. 

While  in  that  city  by  the  watery  border,  chance 
lot  threw  him  in  the  society  of  a  budding  maid, 
the  daughter  of  respected  parentage — which  in  a 
short  time  ripened  in  an  affection  that  ended  in 
marriage.  The  girl  was  a  native  Iowan,  blooming 
inio  womanhood  earl)-,  and  at  the  time  of  her 
wedding  was  scarcely  more  than  fourteen  years 
of  age. 

The  young  husband  had  but  little  of  this  world's 
goods,  and  after  short  honeymoon,  in  considering 
his  circumstances,  accepted  a  flatering  offer  from 
a  venturesome  firm,  and  hired  out  as  cook  for  the 


K  \i  ,E1  DOSCOPIC   Ll\  ES 

mi  nine  hundred  mil<-s  from  ihe  starting  point, 
in  the  then  unhospitable  and  vaguely  known  land, 
the  Painted  Woods  country  of  the  Upper  Missou- 
ri, and  in  the  order  of  distribution  was  assigned 
to  tht  lonely  woodyard  at  Toughtimber. 

At  the  yard  in  the  assignment  of  quarters,  lot 
threw  the  young  Texan  and  the  writer  together  as 
room  mates  and  while  sitting  in  front  of  the 
evening  fire  in  the  cook  room,  ho  gradually  un- 
folded his  life  story  and  told  how  his  wife  was 
won,  and  dwelt  on  the  ever  to  him  interesting  sub- 
ject,  long  and  fondly.  He  anxiously  counted  the 
days  that  would  elapse  before  the  great  river  in 
front  of  our  stockade'  would  loosen  its  frozen  let- 
ters, and  pleasantly  anticipated  the  time  when 
In  m  the  hurricane  deck  of  a  returning  steamer 
he  might  get  welcome  sight  of  the  city  that  con- 
tained.— as  he  tenderly  expressed  it — "the  finest 
little  woman  in  the  world." 

Like  many  others  born  and  raised  beyond  the 
line  of  schools  on  the  Texan  frontier  border,  this 
young  man  could  neither  read  nor  write  in  the 
simplest  English.  Xow,  of  all  times,  he  felt  the 
needs  of  chirographic  communication  most. 
There  were  hundred  of  miles  of  frozen  plains  be- 
tween him  and  his  wife,  it  was  true,  yet  as  isola- 
ted as  our  woodyard  was,  eastern  mail  reached 
our  door  only  one  week  old.  The  delicate  duly 
therefore,  of  reading  and  writing  answers  confi- 
ding letters  between  husband  and  wife  fell  to  my 
lot  as  the  sequence  of  the  Texan's  neglected 
education. 


OF  TWO  GRAVES  IN  THE  BLACK  KILLS     80 

As  the  sun  grew  higher  in  the  heavens  in  its 
daily  evolutionary  course  of  planet  movements, 
and  glad  spring  was  being  welcomed  by  the  faith- 
ful little  harbinger  of  warmer  days — the  soft- 
chirping  chickadee  of  the  woodland,  a  new  theme 
occupied  a  large  space  in  the  young  wife's  letters 
to  her  husband.  She  was  about  to  become  a 
mother  and  her  hopes  and  fears  for  the  event  give 
pathos  to  its  wording,  and  in  angelic  tenderness 
begged  that  her  husband,  might  be  with  her  in  the 
supreme  hour.  Thus  closed  the  correspondence 
as  far  as  the  third  party  was  concerned  but  the 
recollection  of  those  tender  epistles  from  the  gir! 
wife  to  her  absent  husband  remain  as  fresh  in 
mind  as  a  memory  of  yesterday. 

The  summer  following,  tLejyyri.ter  of  these  lines 
chased  up  ?.rid  down  the  great  \ alley  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  the  Fort  Bufor-.i  country,  bracing  up  with 
the  exhilerating.and  pleasurable,  excitement  of  the 
almost  daily  send  off,  in  Indian  scares,  with  the 
astute  Sitting  Bull  and  sardonic  Long  Dog  as  the 
dread  laced  Jack-in-the  boxes  that  spring  them- 
selves out  from  the  clumps  of  sage  brush  or  grease 
wood  that  mark  the  wallows  and  washouts  of  the 
plains  surrounding  the  showy  frontier  fort  which 
bore  ;  the  honored  name  of  a  New  Jersey  cav- 
alry leader  of  the  civil  war. 

At  the  beginning  of  Autumn,  some  nine  of  a 
party  started  out  in  an  open  boat  from  Fort  Bu- 
ford  in  charge  of  a  deputy  marshal  as  witnesses  in 
a  United  States  court  case  at  Yankton,   the    then 


Ei  kaleidoscopic  lives. 

capital  of  the  Territory — over  a  thousands  miles 
by  the  river's  course.  As  we  drifted  along  on  our 
lengthy  trip  we  touched  at  woodyard,  post  and 
Indian  camp,  until  the  familiar  fort  was  reached 
that  sat  so  handsomely  on  the  yellow  plain  below 
the  sluggish  waters  of  Douglass  river.  Down 
toward  the  boat  landing  we  slowly  drifed  along 
the  cut  bar,  thence  to  the  tie-up. 

Among  the  first  acquaintances  that  came  down 
from  the  fort  to  greet  us  was  the  young  Texan. 
He  was  a  happy  man.  His  wife  and  babe  was 
with  him  at  the  post,  he  told  us,  and  he  had  the 
post  commander's  permission  to  run  an  eating 
restaurant  in  connection  with  the  post  trader's 
store. 

"You  must  come  up  and  see  us'  he  said  cheer- 
ily to  the  writer,  ''She  knows  you  now;  I  told 
her  all   about  the  letters." 

We  then  started  up  to  the  fort  by  the  "water 
road"  crossing  the  Garrison  creek  bridge  to  the 
new  restaurant  west  of  the  officers  quarters.  On 
our  way  along  a  painful  item  of  news  was  imparted 
to  the  Texan.  A  subpeene  was  served  on  him  to 
appear  with  the  rest  of  us  at  Yankton.  He  ral- 
lied, but  with  a  sad  attempt  at  gaiety  presented  us 
to  his  wife.  She  was  a  very  beautiful  blonde,  and 
with  a  neatly  dressed,  romping  child  in  her  arms, 
heightened  the  color  of  a  pretty  picture.  The 
shade  that  was  thown  across  it  happily  for  us,  was 
reserved  for  our  departure.  The  parting  scene 
between  this  young  couple,  we  did  not  see. — 
Neither  did  we  wish  to  see.     In   being    left    with 


OF  TWO  GRAVES  IN  THE  BLACK  HILLS.  82 

her  tender  babe  behind, — she  would  have  neither 
father  or  mother  husband  or  brother  to  protect 
her  now.  Here  was  a  liberh'ne's  opportunity, — and 
also  a  coward's.  There  is  but  little  more  to  say. 
A  tongue  of  deceit — a  subtle  drug — a  trumpted 
up  situation — and  darkness  and  despair  for  this 
child  wife. 

A  personal  friend  of  the  chronicler  of  these 
pages  had  occasion  to  pass  some  years  of  his  life 
in  the  Black  Hills  immediately  after  the  in-rush 
of  miners  and  adventurers  succeeding  the  Custer 
expedition  of  1874.  Among  the  incidents  of  the 
early  days  of  Deadwood,  the  chief  town  there,  this 
friend  related  the  closing  account  of  a  life  wreck. 
The  story  pitiful  as  it  was,  might  have  passed  my 
mind  as  many  another  of  its  like  had  done,  but 
some  personal  recollections  of  an  earlier  day — and 
to  the  poor  victim  a  purer  and  surely  a  happier  one, 
gives  painful  interest  in  telling  this  plain  truthful 
story  that  I  here  narrate,  curtailed  somewhat  in 
order  of  abrieviation   from  the  verbal  to  writing. 

The  verbal  narrator  told  how,  one  wintry  day 
he  had  received  information  while  walking  along 
Deadwood's  primitive  thoroughfare,  that  a  young 
woman,  with  scant  means  was  either  dead  or  dy- 
ing in  a  lowly  miner's  cabin  near  the  outskirts  of 
the  town.  Thinking  over  the  circumstances  of 
her  past  life — for  he,  too,  had  known  her  long  and 
well — induced  him  to  go  search  that  he  might 
find  her,  and  if  not  already  dead  contribute  some- 
thing for  comfort  in  her  dying  hour. 


*3  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVE8 

She  was  not  dead  but  her  last  hour  had  come. 
C>n  a  regulation  miner's  "bunk"  with  a  few  tat- 
tered  quilts,  within  a  close  room  scant  of  furnish- 
ings lay  the  young  woman,  with  the  pallor  of  death 
fast  spreading  over  her  emaciated   features. 

(  m  a  chair  at  the  bedside  of  the  dying  girl  sat 
an  attendent — a  female  ot  another  race, — who 
although  faults  they  may  have — yet  for  unself- 
ish ministrations  to  the  sick  and  unfortunate,the 
Aunt  Sally's  and  Aunt  Dinah's  of  the  colored  race 
occupy  a  distinction  gratefully  acknowledged  by 
the  unprejudiced  everywhere. 

Among  the  scant  trappings  surrounding  the 
sick  woman  lay  a  letter  which  .-he  had  evidently 
ceived  from  some  one  in  answer  to  he*  asking  for 
financial  aid  The  short  answer  had  told  of  its 
failure: — "You'  brother  says  he  has  no  sister." 

On  a  shelf  with  some  half  emptied  bottles  of 
medicine,  lay  a  well  thummed  copy  of  "McLeod 
of  Pare,"  r.nd  a  pr.ge  marker  toward  the  last  of 
the  b  >ok,  which  place  the  faithful  nurse  told  my 
informant,  that  her  patient  had  been  frequently 
reading  before  she  had  become  so  weakened  by 
sickness  as  to  be  unable  to  hold  the  little  book 
in  lvjr  hands.  The  marker  rested  on  the  closing 
death  scene  of  Black's  hero  and  evidently  reflec:ed 
the  state  of  her  mind  at  the  time: 

"King  Deatli  was  a  rare  old  fellow, 
He  sat  where  no  sun  could   shine; 

And  1r'  lifted  his  hand   so  yellow, 

An  1    j  oured  out  his  coal-hlaek   wine! 


OF  TWO  CiKAVlLb  iS    THE  BLA^iv  HILLS.   c4 

Tliere  came  to  him  many  a  maiden, 

Whose  eyes  had  forgot  to  shine, 
And  widows  with  grief  o'er  laden, 

For  draught  of  his  sleepy  wine! 
Hurrah!    hurrah!    hurrah!    for  the  coal-black 

wine! 

All  came  to  the  rare  old  fellow, 

Who  laughed  till  his  eyes  dropped  brine, 

As  he  gave  them  his  hand  so  yellow, 

And  pledged  them,  in  Death's  black  wine! 

Hurrah!  hurrah!    hurrah!    for   the    coal-black 
wine!" 

ONE   day   toward    the    latter    part    of    May, 
1883,    while  working  on  a    piece    of  government 
land   near  Painted  Woods,  N.  D.,  endeavoring  to 
secure  private  title  by  following  the  intent  of  the 
law  as  to  the  planting  and  cultivation  of  young  trees, 
my  attention   was  called  to  the  approach  of  a  man 
coming  from  the  river,  making  directly  for  the  place 
where  I  was  at  work.     It  proved  to  be  Sunda,  (or 
at  least  that  is  what  we  will  call  him  in  this  chroni- 
cle,) a  hunter,  trapper,  scout  and  Indian  fighter  of 
more  than  passing  repute  in  a  country  where  the 
the  lens  of  the  revolving    kaleidescope  are  ever 
turningoverin  the  jumble  of  the  crescents,  someact 
of  heroism  or  mark  that  bring  sudden  and    some- 
times bewildering  fame  to  the  border  adventurer. 
The  man  before  me  was  an  old  acquaintance  and 
our  recognition  was  mutual, although  nine  years  had 
passed  since  as  camp  partners  on  the  trap  line  we 
had  parted  on  White  Earth  river,  and    only  once 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  I.I  VE8 

after,    sixteen    months  later  at  Scott's    woodyard 
below   the   Yellowstone's   mouth,    1  had    bid  him 

a  last  adieu  until  this  meet  at  the  tree  claim. 

It  was  at  Scott's  yard  shortly  after  our  interview- 
there  that  Sunda  made  his  reputation  as  a  very 
quick  and  dead  shot  in  shooting  a  sneaking  hostile 
who  was  drawing  bead  on  unsuspecting  Deacon 
Hemmingway  while  the  latter  was  chopping  cord- 
wood  for  Scott  in  a  grove  near  the  prairie.  The 
crack  of  the  hunter's  rifle  and  the  falling  of  a  red 
painted  Indian  from  behind  a  tree  was  the  first  in- 
timation the  startled  Deacon  had   of   his    danger. 

The  next  I  heard  of  the  hunter  was  a  year 
later  on  Yellowstone  river  where  a  shot  from  his 
rifle  had  penetrated  the  supposed  invulnerable 
body  of  a  hostile  Sioux  medicine  man.  The  war- 
rior was  making  a  "holy  show"  of  himself  with 
an  idea,  evidently,  of  encouraging  his  more  timid 
companions  to  openly  attack  the  crew  of  a  steam- 
boat while  the    vessel    was  "hugging  the  shore." 

Still  later  I  had  heard  that  this  quandam  partner 
of  mine  had  visited  Bismarck,  and  after  equipping 
for  the  northern  buffalo  grounds;  hired  a  boy,  and 
secured  a  young  woman  from  "across  the  track," 
for  campkeeper,  and  when  all  was  made  ready 
had  taken  the  train  west  for  Glendive,  and 
through  a  newspaper  clipping  from  that  point,  I 
learned  that  this  strangely  selected  party  of  hide- 
hunters  were  in  among  the  last  of  the  northern 
buffalo  herd  and  that  Sunda  had  brought  down 
7000  buffalo  hides  as  the  result  of  t he  first  winter's 
shoot   the  product,  mostly,  of  his  own  rifle. 


O  GRAVE3  IN  THE  BLACK  HILLS.  8G 

Upon  the  occasion  of  this  meet  at  the  tree  claim, 
after  first  greeting,  we  walked  back  to  the  old  log 
stockade  where  as  two  of  a  party  of  three  we  had 
had  made  winter  camp  during  cold  days  of  the 
months  of  January  and  February  1874.  Of  course 
after  so  long  an  absence  on  different  lines  we  had 
mutual  queries  to  ask,  but  it  was  not  until  after  the 
red  sun  had  sunk  behind  the  high  ridges  of  Oliver 
county  that  the  hunter  guest  began  to  tell  of  the 
events  at  Red  water  preceeding  the  extermination 
of  the  last  of  that  magnificant  band  of  buffalo  de- 
nominated the  northern  herd. 

Time  and  place  have  much  to  do  with  the  im- 
press of  a  story.  A  cabin  surrounded  with  giant 
cottonwoods  just  putting  forth  their  pea  green 
leaves;  songs  in  various  notes  and  cadence 
from  the  throats  of  a  thousand  happy  birds  cele- 
brating safe  arrival  in  their  summer  nesting 
grounds;  air  laden  with  the  fragrance  of  bursting 
buds  and  a  light  breeze  wafting  from  the  river 
sounds  of  the  waters'  rush  by  sand  bar  and  saw- 
yer.     A  propitious  hour,  surely,  for  song  or  story, 

Sunda  said  he  would  tell  all  about  the  girl  he 
had  taken  west  from  Bismarck  if  I  had  patience 
to  give  attention.  In  answer  said  I  was  but  too  glad 
to  hear  all  he  choose  10  tell.  Introducing  his  sub- 
ject, said,  the  young  woman  had  come  up  from 
Kansas  City  on  a  river  steamer.  As  a  native  of 
Jackson  county  Missouri,  the  hiding  place  and 
headquarters  of  several  desperate  gangs  of  bush- 
wackers  during  civil  war  times,  and  with  such  sur- 


67  CALEIDOSC<  >PIC   LIVES. 

round ings  and  invironment,  and  while  yet  a  little 
girl,  she  had  witnessed  the  cruel,  inexcusible  and 
violent  death  of  her  father  from  their  hands  and 
knew  that  she  had  lost  a  brother  also  through 
their  bloody  work.  Following  this  she  met  with 
betrayal  from  one  who  should  have  been  her 
protector;  had  found  deceit  where  true  affec- 
tion should  have  reigned,  and  being  inexperienced 
in  the  ways  of  this  selfish  world  had  fallen  by  the 
wayside. 

My  friend  the  hunter  was  a  line  specimen  of 
the  physical  man.  His  a^e  at  this  lime  was 
twenty  five  years.  To  his  question  would  she 
go  with  him  to  the  buffalo  grounds,  her  answer 
"I  will  go  with  you  any  where"  told  of  her  true 
nature  hoping  for  the  best.  For  two  years  she 
shared  every  discomfort  with  her  consort  on  the 
open  range.  The  howling  blizzards,  the  lurking 
war  party  the  veering  of  stampeding  buffalo  herds 
brought  no  wavering  of  her  loyalt) — no  word  of 
complaint.  She  was  with  the  man  she  loved  and 
if  he  choose  to  be  there  in  savage  squalor,  it  was 
her  place  also.  Twice  only  he  had  seen  her  in 
tears,  The  boy  who  had  formed  the  trio  acci- 
dently  shot  himself  and  she  tore  strips  from  her 
dress  to  staunch  'he  flow  of  blood  from  the  dying 
boy.  Wlvn  the  lad  was  dead  she  sat  down  and 
cried  as  if  her  heart  would  break.  She  would 
take  the  place  of  the  absent  mother,— she  said, 
as  far  as  in  her  power,  and  do  the  best  that  could 
be  done  fur  the  dead    in   that  wintry  wilderness. 


OF  TWO  GRAVES  IN  THE  BLACK  HILLS.     88 

But  the  last  of  the  buffalo  were  shot  down  cold. 
Sunda  alone  had  killed  10,000.  His  thoughts 
took  a  restless  turn.  His  mind  wandered  to  the 
broad  Chesapeake  the  home  of  his  boyhood.  He 
became  irritable  in  camp  though  his  brave  partner 
must  have  noticed  the  change  her  poor,  palpitating 
heart  refused  to  yield.  Every  rebuff  was  met  by 
pleading  eyes.  But  the  hunter  finally  brought 
his  courage  to  bear  and  he  told  her  the  state  of 
his  mind.  As  her  share  for  the  indurance  of  two 
years  hardship  he  tendered  the  twice  betrayed 
girl  $1000  and  at  the  same  time  frankly  told  this 
loyal  consort  the  time  had  now  come  for  them  to 
part  forever. 

"Sunda,  I  love  the  ground  you  walk  on,"  she 
replied  "but  if  you  don't  want  me  I'll  not  follow 
you— I  am  too  proud  for  that."  Then  holding  up 
the  roll  of  money,  she  continued; — "When  this  is 
gone  I  am  gone.".  With  these  words  and  a  burst  of 
tears  she  was  away. 

Some  mouths  after  this  Sunda,  received  at 
letter  from  a  friend  in  Deadwood  describing  the 
tragic  end  of  a  girl  in  a  public  dance  hall.  It  was 
at  the  close  of  a  quadrille  amidst  the  dying  strains 
of  music,  a  richly  dressed  girl  rushed  out  to  the 
centre  of  the  hall,  drew  a  pistol  and  fired  a  bullet 
through  her  heart  before  she  could  be  reached.  A 
newspaper  slip  gave  after  particulars.  In  the  para- 
graph mention  was  made  of  the  rich  dress  and  glit- 
tering jewels  that  adorned  the  person  of  the  suicide 
but  that  no  money  was  found  about  her.  From 
the  description  of  some  mementoes  found  among 
her  belongings,  Sunda  knew  the  dead  girl  and  his 
consort  of  the  Redwater  was  one  and  the  same.    It 


KALKIDOS  IOPIC  LIVES 

was  now  too  late  to  make  amends  and  too  slow  to 
realise  that  henceforth  hi>  heart  was  buried  to  the 

world  and  would  linger  only  for  the  memory  of  one 
who  had  given  up  her  life  that  she  might  forgel 
tin-  ingratitude  <>f  her  heart's  chosen  one. 

Sunda  had  been  setting  in  the  cabin  door  while 
reciting  his  story— and  at  its  close  the  beams  of  the 
Bitting  moon  falling  full  in  his  face  disclosed  tears 
like  glistening  beads  chasing  each  other  down  this 
strong  man's  cheeks.  Oppressive  silence  followed 
within  and  without.  The  lively  birds  had  hours 
before  ceased  their  chirping  and  twittering  among 
the  trees  about  us  and  the  branches  that  had  rubbed 
and  swayed  with  the  breeze  of  the  day  were  calm 
and  at  rest.  Without  further  words  the  hunter  rolled 
up  in  his  blankets  and  soon  after  his  troubled  con- 
science and  aching  heart  was  soothed  in  refreshing 
6lumber — if  not  in  pleasant  dreams. 


!**(•** 


Dan.  Williams, 
First  Warden  Bismarck  Penitentiary 


THE  BISMARCK  PENITENTIARY. 

SOMETIME  during  the  winter  of  1886,  the 
writerof  these  sketches  accepted  an  invitation 
for  a  few  days  visit  to  the  North  Dakota  Peniten- 
tiary. The  institution  is  located  within  a  mile  of 
Bismarck,  the  State  capital,  and  directly  along  the 
main  line  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Railway.  The 
invitation  had  come  from  Dan  Williams  first  war- 
den of  the  institution  and  who  gave  seven  years 
creditable  service  as  its  first  officer.  And  thus  was 
I  urshered  within  these  grim  walls  of  rock  and 
iron. 

Penitentaries  have  but  little  interest  to  the  liv- 
ing world  except  as  places  to  keep  away  from, 
and  only  the  morbidly  curious  or  those  interested 
in  some  relative  or  friend  behind  the  iron  gates 
are  to  be  found  among  the  registered  list  of  visit- 
ors, and  as  a  consequence  there  is  no  ban  to  in- 
trusion when  not  in  interferance  with  the  strict 
decipline  which  must  never  be  relaxed  or  lost 
sight  of  about  a  penal  institution. 

The  Bismarck  penitentiary  was  built  in  the  year 
1885,  and  consequently  at  the  time  of  my  visit 
everything  about  the  premises  was  neat  and  clean 
with  an  air  of  freshness  prevading  thereabout.  It 
is  said  a  preceptible  feeling  of  incomprehensible 
gloom   prevade    the  mind   within  the  walls  of  an 


01  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

aged  prison—a  reflex  as  it  were  ol   the    brooding 

minds  and  achinghearts  whose  impress  were  lefi 
within  the  sunless  walls  that  had  environed  them. 
As  old  nurses  or  attendants  at  asylums  lor  the 
insane  are  known  to  frequently  become  maniacs 
themselves  through  some  strange  transmission 
or  contagion,  so  too,  attendants  and  keepers  ol 
prisons  by  some  mysterious  influence  loose  men- 
tal balance  and  in  after  time  are  controlled  by 
criminal  instincts  strangely  at  variance  with  their 
former  action  and  which  frequently  ends  in  a 
suicide's    grave  or  a  felon's  cell. 

A  life  sentence  within  penitentiary  walls  is  but 
a  life  burial  to  the  unhappy  mortal  whose  trans- 
gression or  misfortune  forced  it.  Old  accquain 
tances  fall  away  and  forget  or  class  him  with  the 
dead  ami  in  his  isolation,  has  no  chance  to  form 
new  ones.  He  seldom  sees  the  sun  moon  and 
stars.  No  pure  fresh  air;  no  green  grass;  no 
leaf)  foliage;  no  beautiful  flowers  save  those 
oderless  ones  upon  the  casements  about  the 
naked  prison  walls. 

Some  months  before  my  \isit  to  the  Bismarck 
institution  there  had  been  a  young  attorney  from 
a  neighboring  State,  incarcerated  and  serving 
time    in   the    Sioux  Fails    penitentiary,—  and    had 

i]  placed  there  through  the    instrumentality  of 

his  wife, — a  heartless  and  extravagant  woman  who 
had  sought  this  means  of  ridding  herself  of 
her  husband  for  another  she  had  already  selected. 
The  laws  of  the  State  gave  her  the  right  of  divorce 


THE  BISMARCK  PENITENTIARY.  92 

through  the  courts,  and  chance, — opportunity  and 
inherent  depravity  and  subversion  ot  her  better 
self — did  the  rest. 

During  my  short  stay  at  the  Bismarck  peniten- 
tiary a  case  just  the  opposite  of  the  above  came 
under  my  observation  which  offset  the  discredit 
h»*ought  on  the  sex,  and  wifely  loyalty  by  the 
Sioux  Falls  woman.  A  young  man  convicted  of 
homicide  and  sentenced  to  four  years  hard  labor 
within  its  uninviting  walls.  He  had  some  time 
before  his  trouble  married  a  nv>st  estimable  young 
and  beautiful  girl,  the  petted  daughter  of  wealthy 
parents  and  of  high  social  position  in  the  Hawk 
eye  state.  From  the  hour  of  the  beginning  of 
her  husband's  misfortune,  she  devoted  her  whole 
time  and  a  large  portion  of  her  wealth  to  save 
her  youthful  husband  from  conviction  in  the  court 
and  failing,  hung  about  the  cage  of  her  imprisoned 
mat*3:  as  would  a  bluebird  or  robin  red  breast,  ever 
ready  to  minister  to  his  wants  and  prove  her  un- 
selfish devotion  save  when  the  cold  hand  of  disci 
pline  and  the  stern  and  rigid  rules  of  the  prison 
forbade.  Through  her  husband's  good  behavior 
and  her  own  persistent  efforts  in  his  behalf  she 
was  rewarded  at  last.  A  change  in  public  opinion 
gave  opportunity  for  the  acting  governor  to  ex- 
tend his  clemencv.  so  a  full  pardon  was  heartily 
approved,  and  the  now  happy  young  lady  led 
forth  her  husband,  past  barred  windows  and  iron 
(ioors,  a  freeman.  The  glad  wish  of  all  who  were 
witnesses  to  the  closing  act  of  this  drama  went  to 
the   young  people,  and  the  hope   of  those    whose 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

hearts  wrrr  enlisted,  that  this  young  husband 
would  never  again  give  occasion  to  so  try  the  de- 
votion of  his  faithful  wife. 

1  here  is  seldom  a  conviction  of  a  criminal  hut 
what  entails  suffering  more  or  less  upon  his  or 
her  innocent  family  or  friends.  It  is  the  thought 
of  this — even  under  dire  distress  or  great  provo- 
cation— that  often  stay  the  arm  of  the  passionate 
or  revengefully  disposed  But,  then  again,  there 
are  those  blinded  to  all  consequences — the  blow 
was  struck — the  deed  was  done,  and  scenes  like 
the  following  that  came  under  my  observation 
during  this  visit,  is  too  often  in  line  with  the  after- 
math: 

A  young  man  from  the  eastern  part  of  the  State 
had  been  convicted  for  manslaughter  and  sen- 
tenced to  twelve  years  hard  labor  in  the  the  pen- 
itentiary. His  uncle  was  the  head  of  one  of  the 
most  widely  known  of  Minnesota  business  houses 
and  his  father,  too  was  a  wealthy  and  influential 
man.  His  social  position  was  also  of  high  order. 
Famous  and  high  priced  lawyers  had  been  retained 
at  great  expense,  yet  thanks  to  an  honest  jury  and 
an  upright  judge,  justice  in  this  particular  case 
was  not  altogether  thwarted.  He  was  now  in  con- 
vict's garb,  and  the  venerable  careworn  old  father 
had  come  to  bid  him  good-bye.  It  was  Sunday, 
and  services  were  going  on, — the  prison  choir 
commenced  to  sing,  accompanied  by  the  solemn 
toned  organ. — ■ 

•I>o  they  miss  me  at  home     do  they  miss  me 
"T  would  Ik*  an  assurance  most  dear. 


THE  BISMARCK  PENITENTIARY.  04 

To  know  that  this  moment  some  loved  one. 
Were  saying  I  wish  he  were  here5 

To  feel  that  the  group  at  the  fireside, 
Were  thinking  of  me  as  I  roam. 

Oh,  yes  'twould  be  joy  beyond  measure, 
To  know  that  they  miss  at  me  home. 

When  twilight  approaches,  the  season 

That  ever  is  sacred  to  song, 
Does  some  one  repeat  my  name  over, 

And  sigh  that  I  tarry  so  long? 
And  is  there  a  chord  in  the  music, 

That's  missed  when  my  voice  is  away, 
And  a  chord  in  each  heart  that  awaketh 

Regret  at  my  wearisome  stay? 

*  *  *  *  =K  * 

Do  they  miss  me  at  home — do  they  miss  me 

At  morning,  at  noon,  or  at  night? 
And  lingers  one  gloomy  shade  round  them, 

That  only  my  presence  can  light? 
Are  joys  less  invitingly  welcome, 

And  pleasures  less  hale  than  before, 
Because  one  is  missed  from  the  circle, 

Because  I  am  with  them  no  more? 

The  sad  tones  of  the  organ  seemed  to  go  to 
the  father's  heart,  for  after  casting  his  eye  upon 
the  troubled  features  of  his  boy  he  turned  his  face 
to  the  wall  and  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears.  "Oh^ 
am  I  crazy, — oh,  am  I  crazy,"  he  said  as  he  rocked 
his  body  to  and  fro  in  mental  anguish.  I  could 
stand  it  no  longer  and  passed  out  of  the  room. 

Early  one  morning  a  letter  came  up  for  the 
warden's  inspection  from  the  cell  room.  It  was 
from  a  convict  who  said  in  substance  that  this  was 


K  ^LEJDOSCOPIC  LIVE8 

his  second  term   in   prison,    that   his   lather   had 

died  in  jail,  that  his  mother  was  now  serving  at 
Joliet.  and  that  his  only  brother  was  also  serving 
a  long  term  at  Fort  Madison,  Iowa. 

"I  am  bred  and  born  a  thief,"  he  went  on,  and 
if  free  to-morrow  I  could  not  help  stealing.  As 
1  am  no  use  and  all  harm  in  the  world,  I  may  as 
well  die,  and  to  that  end  have  pounded  up  and 
swallowed  nearly  a  pint  of  glass.  There  is  no 
help  for  me  now.  If  there  is  a  hell  and  I  go  there 
it  will  make  but  little  difference  if  I  go  sooner  than 
1  might.  If  there  is  a  heaven  and  I  go  there,  the 
sooner  I  go  the  better.  And  if  there  i-  neither 
heaven  nor  hell,  it  will  make  no  difference  any- 
how." 

The  warden  instantly  telephoned  for  the  prison 
physician,  and  with  a  deputy  warden  hastened 
down  to  the  cell  with  a  quart  of  oil,  pried  open 
the  jaws  of  the  would  be  suicide,  and  poured  the 
contents  down  his  throat.  By  a  miricle  his  life 
was  saved,  though  he  had  to  be  closely  watched 
from  making  another  artempt  when  an  opportunity 
presented.  In  searching  the  prisoner's  cell  noth- 
ing particular  was  f  »u;nl.  The  last  two  versus  of 
Co\vper*s  "Castaway"  were  pinned  on  the  wall. 
The  Castawav,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  the 
last  production  during  the  last  lucid  interval  of 
that  unfortunate  poet.      VVe  quote  the  two  verses: 

'•I  therefore  purpose  not  or  dream, 

Discanting  on  his  fate, 
To  give  the  melancholy  theme 


THE  BISMARCK  PENITENTIARY  96 

A  more  enduring  date; 
But  misery  still  delights  to  trace 
Its  semblance  in  another's  case. 
''No  voice  divine  the  storm  allay 'd, 

No  light  propitious  shone, 
When,  snatch 'd  from  all  effectual  aid, 

We  perish'd,  each  alone; 
But  I  beneath  a  rougher  sea, 

And  whelmed  in  deeper  gulfs  than  he." 

Among  the  outside  of  gate  or  trusty  prisoners 
was  one  Mike  Finnegan,  with  a  face  of  Hibernian 
cast.  Michael's  acquintance  was  not  difficult  to 
acquire,  nor  was  he  backward  in  exploiting  on  the 
misadventure  that  caused  him  to  "do  time"  in 
the  penitentiary.  He  had  been  "put  over  the 
road,"  he  said  by  way  of  apology  or  explanation, 
for  "unloosning  Teddy  Roosevelt's  skiff."  He 
explained  further  that  himself  and  partner  had 
made  a  miscalculation  and  supposed  the  nervy 
New  Yorker  was  an  ordinary  eastern  tenderfoot, 
and  if  he  missed  his  nicely  painted  blue  boat  on  a 
stormy  day,  would  wait  for  the  weather  to  clear 
up  before  the  drifts  were  examined  down  stream. 

"But  that's  where  our  miscalculation  come  in," 
went  on  the  verboose  Finnegan,  "You  see  we 
wanted  to  trap  and  shoot  beaver  while  the  Little 
Missouri  was  in  flood,  afftl  didn't  have  much  of  a 
boat,  so  concluded  to  swap  sight-unseen  with  this 
Medora  ranchman.  Of  course  it  was  night  and 
we  couldn't  see — and  the  owner  was  in  his  dreams. 
Well  the  worst  storm  1  ever  got  caught  out  in 
rounded  us  in  at  the    mouth    of   Cherry,    and   we 


I :  KALKID*  >.^<  :<  »l'l«    LIVES 

went  into  camp.  Ms'  how  it  snowed  and  tli«* 
wind  howled  'We're  all  righi  here  hulls  Im>s'.  said 
my  pard,  and  I  thought  ih<-  same  thing— without 
talking.  Supprised  you  might  say — wasn't  sse 
though—  when  thai  d d  New  Yorker  cov- 
ered us  with  his  l; l» ns  for  a  hands  up.  What 
could  we  do  ssith  our  flukes  wet  and  full  o(  mud, 
our  clothes  ringing  svet  and  minds  preoccupied. 
What  would  you  have  done?  The  Ness  Yorker 
g"Ot  the  best  of  us — and  here  I  am." 


-    ~„ 


V 


,  1 


^■■nm 


A  pari  of  Old    Fort  Berthold,  Viewed  from  Mal- 

norie's  Trading  Store,-   Taken  by 

Morrow  in  1870. 

in  Clin  it    iJil  Inge --ill  mid  nil   mid  Cftros 
\lctitrc  (jjuavttv. 


FROM  WEST  TO  EAST. 

AFTER  having  watched  from  the  galleries  of 
the  hall  of  Representatives,  the  pr,  ceedings 
of  the  North  Dakota  constitutional  convention 
from  the  opening  to  the  closing  day,  in  July, 
IS89,  I  prepared  for  a  long  projected  trip  to  the 
Atlantic's  coast  lands  after  an  absence  ot  twenty- 
two  years,  nearly  the  whole  of  which  time  had 
been  passed  in  isolation  on  the  plains  or  wood- 
lands of  the  Dakotas.  It  was,  therefore  with  a 
strange,  half  forsaken  feeling,  when  I  took  a  seat 
in  an  eastern  bound  passenger  train  at  the  Bis- 
marck depot  at  the  hour  of  midnight,  and  passed 
swiftly  from  the  sleeping  city,  and  through  long 
stretches  of  silent,  sparcely  settled  prairies.  James- 
town at  the  crossing  of  the  historic  old  Riviere 
Jaques,  is  passed  at  sunri.-e,  then  Sanborn,  next 
Valley  City  and  later  on  the  broad  expanse  of  the 
Red  River  Valley,  the  greatest  wheat  growing 
district  in  the  world.  On  eastward  the  train  surges 
and  thumps  until  the  beautiful  Detroit  Lake  is 
seen — the  dividing  line  between  the  timber  and 
prairie  lands.  Brainard  on  the  Mississippi  is 
reached;  cars  and  directions  are  changed,  and  the 
train  glides  like  a  section  serpent  through  the 
dark  forests  of  pine  and  tamarack  that  mark  the 
country  bordering  Lake  Superior  the  greatest    of 


K  \  LK1 1'<  >SC( )]  "K  !  Ll\  i:s 

nlancl  lakes.  A  f«\v  isolated  lumbermen; 
s«  ime  railn  >ad  employes  scattei  ed  at  intervals  along 
the  route,  and  here  and  there  the   l>rnsh   lodge  of 

o 

a  forlorn  group  ol  the  red  Chippeways  gave  the 
scene--,  a  variable  turn  as  we  were  hurled  along 
until  sighting  the  vast  watery    expanse,    and    the 

life  and  hustle  of  the  "Zenith  city  of  the   unsalted 

s<  as." 

Another  day,  and  as  passenger  on  the  fine 
steamer  China,  we  were  plowing  the  pine  tinted 
bosom  of  the  largest  chain  of  fresh  water  lakes  in 
the  world.  Familiar,  as  I  had  been  as  a  seeker  of 
information  concerning  this  region — had  delighted 
in  tracing  the  details  of  early  explorations  and  the 
varied  careers  of  its  first  explorers,  my  imaginative 
ideal  of  the  country  as  dreamed  over  fell  far  short 
of  the  real  as  actually  observed.  Eleven  hundred 
miles  by  fast  steamer — traveling  night  and  day, 
sometimes  out  of  sight  of  land,  and  even  then 
stopped  short  of  the  terminal  of  the  lakes'  chain. 
The  hottest  days  of  July  and  August  never  change 
thetemperture  of  the  deep  waters  of  Lake  Superior 
— always  ice  cold.  Heavy  pine  forests  line  its 
shores,  and  as  we  skirted  the  American  side  some 
lurid  conflagrations  were  in  sight  and  dense  clouds 
of  black  smoke  enveloped  us  as  we  moved  swiftly 
along.  Mackanaw,  old  St.  Mary's  and  other 
places  of  historic  interest  were  carefully  scanned, 
and  the  changes  from  early  historic  times  noted. 

As  the  boat  meandered  through  the  narrow  bed 
ot  the  St.  Clair  river  highly  cultivated  farms  were 
seen  on  either  bank;  but    more    beautiful    to    me 


FROM  WEST  TO  EAST.  100 

than  stately  mansions  or  rows  of  tasseled  corn 
were  the  little  low  limbed  broad  leafed  apple 
trees  the  sight  of  one  I  had  not  witnessed  in  twen- 
ty-two years.  Passing  Port  Huron;  passing  Bri- 
tish Sarnia;  passing  historic  old  Detroit,  and  the 
boisterous  waters  of  Lake  Erie  is  reached.  On 
sped  the  China  signaling  passing  vessels  by  night 
and  by  day.  Erie  city  is  reached  and  passed; 
Cleveland  is  passed,  and  on  the  seventh  day  the 
port  of  Buffalo  city  is  entered;  the  steamer  aban- 
doned^  and  an  enjoyable  trip  ended — and  the  only 
regretable  incidents  while  in  the  good  steamer's 
care  were  the  blackmailing  insolence  of  its  porters. 
Another  ride  in  the  cars  and  a  stop  for  a  day's 
recreation  around  the  shores  of  Canandiaguai,  one 
of  the  most  picturesque  ofthe  many  beautiful  lakes 
in  western  New  York.  Then,  again  riding  behind 
the  screeching  locomotive,  passing  the  lights  of 
queenly  Elmira  at  the  midnight  hour  thence  down 
the  deep  cut  valleys  of  the  forest-lined  Susque- 
hanna until  Pennsylvania's  capitol  came,  insight — 
thence  through  the  rich  farm  lands  of  the  "Penn- 
sylvania  Dutch,"  the  thriftiest  of  America's  farmers 
and  people  as  a  class  who  love  the  comforts  of 
home  life  as  glimpses  from  the  car  window  reveals 
the  plain  and  unpretentious  though  roomy  dwel- 
lings, large  barns,  numerous  outbuildings  and. 
cleanly  cultivated  fields  and  gardens.  Through 
Lancaster  and  across  the  stagnant  Conestoga.  the 
swift  Octorara,  the  stony  bedded,  bubble-chasing 
Brandywine,  when  West  Chester,  the  Athens  of 
the  Keystone  State  is    reached.       Here,    twenty- 


L01  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

eight  and  thirty  years  before,  the  writer,  as  a  hope- 
ful typo  labored  on  the  old  Chester  County  Times, 

long  since  among  the  grand  array  ot  newspaper 
"has  beens."  The  town  then  as  now  the  county 
capital — but  in  those  days  a  model  little  town  of 
3,000  people  now  numbering  15,000.  Then  the 
town  had  four  modest  weekly  papers — now  three 
ambitious  dailies,  and  some  half  dozen  weeklies  to 
prod  them  along.  On  the  morning  of  my  arrival 
in  West  Chester,  a  reporter  noting  a  contractor's 
crew  on  the  construction  works  of  a  railroad  en- 
tering the  town,  after  explaining  in  his  paper  that 
in  nativity  most  of  the  crew  were  either  Italians  or 
Hungarians  asked  in  wonderment,  "Where  art: 
the  Irish?  Twenty  years  ago  the  railroad  construe 
tion  crews  were  Irish,  now  you  seldom  see  one  on 
the  works."  I  could  not  answer  then,  I  was  a 
strange  there.  But  I  could  have  answered  a  little 
later  on  after  having  made  a  few  trips  across  the 
county,  where  the  railroading  Irish  were.  They 
were  in  possession  of  some  of  the  best  of  the 
Quakers'  farms. 

Across  the  county  by  easy  rambles  presents 
new  scenes  and  recalls  almost  forgotten  events  of 
an  earlier  day.  Passing  along  roads  lined  and 
shaded  with  cherry,  apple,  peach,  pear  and  the 
tall  chestnut;  beautiful  gardens  and  conservatories 
filled  with  ferns  and  flowers,  and  fields  of  tasseled 
corn  and  sweet  smelling  "second"  clover  entice 
the  strolling  reviewer  in  tireless  walks.  Passing 
gloomy  Longwood  and  its  associations;  passing 
Bayard  Taylor's  Cedercroft  mansion — silent  now, 


FROM   WEST  TO  EAST.  L02 

almost  as  a  churchyard.  Down  along  Toughken- 
amon  balls,  in  whose  primitive  groves  the  writer  in 
boyhood  days  "played  Indian"  by  camping  out 
amid  leafy  boughs  or  fishing  around  the  old  stone 
bridge.  How  changed  in  thirty  yearj!  Two  rail- 
roads intersecting  here — two  towns,  marble,  stone, 
lime  and  kaolen  quarries.  On  down  over  the 
hills  of  New  London  where  the  old  brick  academy 
stands  as  unadorned  as  in  the  earlier  days  of  our 
disciplined,  student  career  there. 

Down  among  the  laurel  crowned  hills  ol  the 
Elk  creeks  that  send  their  clarified  waters  into  the 
broad,  briny,  Chesapeake  bay.  Among  these  hills 
and  vales,  we  rest.  Here,  memory,  kind  or  un- 
kind, in  shifting  moods,  bid  us  linger.  Changes 
in  forty  years!  The  hills  and  valleys,  creeks  and 
rivulets  remain  much  the  same;  but  in  places  hills 
shorn  of  their  timber  cover;  old  homesteads  either 
remodeled,  or  been  blotted  out  altogether  and 
succeeded  in  many  cases  by  more  pretentious 
edifices  and  strange  designs  that  mark  the  wealth 
of  some  new  owner;  but  more  often  the  case, 
smaller  and  less  pretensious  dwellings  dotted 
about  here  and  there  that  record  the  subdivided 
farms.  The  chubby  faced  school  boy  and  his  dim- 
ple faced,  rosy  cheeked  companion,  have  reached 
the  time  ot  wrinkles  and  grey  hairs,  while  their 
places  at  the  scholars  desk  or  under  the  swinging- 
vine  is  occupied  as  of  yore,  and  laughter,  tears 
and  song  are  heard  on  the  school's  play  ground 
with  the  same  hilarity  or  pathos,  as  fort}'  years 
before.      But  save  now  and  then  a  whitened  head, 


L03  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

the  man  and  matron  <>t  middle  lite  ol  our  boyhood 
days,  have  passed  to  the  narrow  enclosure  that 
mark  the  silent  city  of  the  sepulchered  dead. 

Though  a  prosaic  land  and  prosaic  people,  the 
robed  chameleon  of  romance,  here  as  elsewhere, 
tinge  the  lives  of  those  who  have  became  drawn 
into  the  charmed  vortex  of  its  mysteries.  Cher 
on  the  Maryland  side  of  the  State  line  lived  an 
old  couple.  Being  childless,  they  were  solicited 
by  members  of  an  orphans'  aid  society  to  undertake 
the  care  of  two  little  waifs  that  had  been  aban- 
doned to  the  world's  mercy  and  rescued  as  found 
lings  in  the  streets  of  the  great  city  by  the  river 
Delaware.  The  charitable  kind  hearted  oid  folks 
accepted  the  trust,  and  the  children  though  at  first 
when  thrown  in  each  others  company  were  stran- 
gers, learned  to  be  inseparable  in  their  friendship. 
The  foster  parents  were  kind,  the  children  grate- 
ful. Work  around  the  farm  was  light  in  their 
more  tender  years  and  they  had  the  advantages 
of  regularly  attending  an  excellent  neighborhood 
school.  As  the  children  grew  up  together  they 
not  only  learned  to  respect  and  love  their  foster 
parents  but  to  adore  each  other,  At  the  time  of 
the  writer's  visit  the  boy  and  girl  now  man  and 
woman  grown,  still  cling  to  the  old  homestead, 
which  they  had  beautified  and  adorned.  They 
had  been  dutiful  children  loyal  in  devotion  to  the 
unselfish  benefactors,  and  when  life's  evening 
closed  calmly  around  the  good  foster  parents;  they 
gave  the  youthful  pair  their  blessing,  had  enjoined 
them  to  wedlock  and  willed  them  the  farm 


FROM  WEST  TO  EAST.  104 

On  the  Pennsylvania  side  of  the  state  line  and 
within  less  than  a  mile  of  the  homestead  we  have 
described,  lived  another  kindly  pair,  well  up  in 
years,  and  childless,  also  This  farm,  too,  was 
beautifully  located  on  the  foggy  lined  banks  of  the 
Little  Elk  creek  The  farm  house  surroundings 
were  shaded  with  orchards  of  apple,  cherry,  peach 
and  pear  trees.  Groves  of  walnut,  chestnut, 
stately  populars  and  spotted  barked  butternuts 
side  the  creek  boundaries.  In  summer  days  the 
oarden  walks  lined  with  flowers  which  out  from 
their  sweet  fragrant  bulbs  and  the  white  clover 
lawn,  gave  joy  to  the  industrious  honey  bees  that 
were  domiciled  in  a  circle  of  hives  on  benches 
within  the  garden  enclosure. 

An  orphan's  aid  society,  here  too  visited  as  a 
promising  field,  and  had  prevailed  upon  this  good 
couple  to  take  to  their  home  a  little  girl  waif, — a 
tiny  drift  as  it  were,  from  the  great  human  stream 
pouring  out  from  the  "city  of  brotherly  love." 
Never  could  a  homeless  child  have  fallen  in  gen- 
tler hands  than  this  blue  eyed  delicate  babe,  when 
it  came  to  the  home  of  the  guileless,  tenderhearted 
farmer  and  wife.  A  pretty  face,  a  sunny  temper, 
she  brought  joy  and  sunshine  with  her  entry  into 
the  home  of  her  "new  papa  and  mamma,"  as  in 
exhuberance  of  childish  glee  she  named  her  lov- 
ing guardians. 

In  quiet  and  peace  the  early  years  sped  on  in 
this  orphan  girl's  home  on  the  Elk  farm.  No 
child  of  fortune  could  have  been  more  petted, 
though  to  others  the    gorgeous    show    of   wealth 


105  K  A.LEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

might  have  been  lavished  with  more  prodigal 
hands  Such  was  the  little  maid's  life  until  she 
reached  her  fifteenth  year,  She  grew  up  a  fragile, 
delicate  blond,  "a  shy,  demure  appearing  little 
(  Juakeress,"  -her  neighbors  said, — when  they 
told  me  the  story. 

Across  the  creek,  less  than  a  mile  away  from 
the  little  gfirl's  home  lived  another  neighbor — 
good  kind  old  souls  that  the  writer  remembers  in- 
timately from  his  earliest  day.  The  man,  his  wife 
and  their  family  of  children  owned  and  cultivated 
a  little  farm  the  right  and  title  to  which  they  had 
earned  by  econoni)  and  hard  work.  One  ol  the 
two  hoys  of  the  family  was  employed  by  the  neigh- 
bors whom  we  have  just  discribed,  and  it  was  in 
this  way  and  during  trips  to  school  in  which  both 
traveled  the  same  beaten  path  across  lots,  that  a 
friendly  intimacy  sprang  up  between  the  rugged 
lad  and  the  little  blond  maid  from  over  the  way. 
Thoughtful,  kind  acts;  lugging  her  dinner  pail  or 
books,  won  its  way  by  degrees  until  she  regarded 
his  presence  a  pleasure  either  in  public  gathering 
or  in  the  quiet  duties  of  the  farm.  Attentions 
begun  in  this  way  so  often  follow  along  the  line 
of  natural  law,  that  drifts  into  the  inexplicable 
depths  of  the  very  soul  of  being,  beyond  the 
rescue  of,  and  where  the  power  of  mind  avail  not. 

The  fragile,  gentle  minded  girl,  lonely  from 
absence  of  childish  companionship,  in  the  nature  of 
the  sympathetic  heart,  would  entwine  with  a  tight- 
ening coil  the  object  of  her  girlish  adoration. 
The  brawny,  roistering  boy  with  the   inexperience 


FROM  WEST  TO  EAST.  106 

of  youth,  ignorant  of  the  subtlery  of  the  world's 
manifold  ways,  could  not  have  given  much  heed, 
but  the  girl,  unaware  perhaps,  or  unable  to  stay 
the  promptings  of  a  tender  heart  had  centered  her 
affection  on  the  farmer  lad,  and  in  the  trancience 
of  mesmeric  swiftness,  had  passed  out  of  her  reach 
or  recall.  An  uncontrollable  yearning  for  the 
hul's  presence,  the  subtle  undefinable  gratings  in 
her  breast,  and  every  fanciful  slight  from  her  boy 
lover,  threw  her  in  morbid  repinings,  and  all  the 
kindness  and  care  of  her  foster  parents  could  not 
rescue  her  from  a  lethergic  state  of  mind  into 
which  she  had  drifted.  The  bright  lustre  of  the 
eyes,  the  hectic,  flushed  cheeks,  spells  of  melan- 
choly that  marked  the  girl's  condition  hastens  our 
story  to  its  end. 

The  parents  of  the  young  man,  (for  time  was 
passing,)  had  intervened.  He  was  sent  out  in  a 
western  state  and  asked  to  live  and  forget,  while 
it  is  said  the  girl  was  frankly  told  that  her  unknown 
parentage  was  the  abrupt  and  unscalable  barrier 
that  must  end  forever  her  hopes  of  becoming 
"John's  wife."  It  was  even  said  that  John,  him- 
self, long  before,  had  unguardedly  told  her  the 
same,  and  this  was  the  dead  secret  eating  her  life 
away,  though  she  had  striven  so  hard  to  forget  it. 

The  young  man  was  obedient  to  his  parents; 
forgot  all,  and  married  in  the  west  But  this 
information  was  kept  from  the  stricken  and  de- 
serted ^irl.  Her  time  on  earth  was  short  now. 
To  every  greeting  by  kind  neighbors  she  would 
perface    her    remarks:       "Has    john    come."     or 


107  KALKIIm  >SC<  >PIC  LIVES 

"Why  don't  he  come  to  me,  1  am  so  lonely?" 
Evasive  replies  fell   heedless.       She    was    hoping 

against  hope.  In  her  sick  room  when  unable 
from  weakness  to  arise  from  her    bed    she   asked 

to  ha\c  her  pillows  so  arranged  that  she  could 
look  out  ot  the  window  to  "see  |ohn  a  coming." 
(  hit  oi  the  window  she  peered  day  after  day  across 
the  woodland  strip  that  divided  the  farms.  One 
by  one,  the  yellow,  seared  leaves  dropped  from 
the  intervening  trees;  the  neighboring  house  came 
in  view  through  the  naked  branches,  but  no  fami- 
liar figure  was  seen,  or  no  familiar  footsteps  heard 
along  this  pathway,  and  weary  with  watching  and 
tired  out  with  ceaseless  waiting  the  drooping  girl 
sank  exhausted  in  her  last,  long  sleep. 


o 

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E- 


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PQ 


LITTLE  B2AR  WOMAN. 

SUCH  of  our  readers  who  may  have  perused  a 
copy  of  Fontiek  and  Indian  Life,  will  re- 
member in  a  passage  in  the  sketch, — The  Letter, 
in  Cipher, — some  account  of  the  murder  of  Carlos 
Reider,  but  more  familiarly  known  among  his  En- 
glish speaking  acquaintances  as  Charley  Reeder, 
a  German  woodyard  proprietor  in  the  lower 
Painted  Woods  of  the  Upper  Missouri  Valley. 
The  tragedy  happened  at  Reeder's  stockaded 
cabin  near  the  river's  east  bank,  opposite  to  the 
present  site  ol  Mercer's  ranch,  on  the  morning  of 
the  iith  day  of  June,  1870. 

At  the  time  of  his  death,  Reeder  was  married 
— in  the  Indian  way — to  an  Aricaree-Mandan 
dame,  from  which  union  a  girl  babe  came  forth  to 
draw  their  mutual  love,  and  at  the  time  of  her 
father's  death  the  child  was  about  four  years  old. 
The  Aricaree  name  given  to  the  little  girl — Pah- 
nonee  Talka,  or  as  interpreted  into  the  English 
tongue — Prairie  White  Rose, — but  in  the  order  of 
abbreviation,  she  was  called  plain  Rosa  by  her 
fond  father. 

In  memory  of  the  air  castles  in  which  Reeder 
had  enthroned  his  child  in  his  moments  of  good 
cheer  and  happy  day  dreams  in  that  cabin  among 
the  painted  trees — and  before  cruel  fate  and    evil 


L09  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

passions  sent  him  to  realms  ol  the  unknown—  the 
writer  of  these  lines  felt  himself  interested  enough 
in  the  chiKl's  welfare  to  try  and  have  her  parent 
consent  to  starting  the  little  one  off  with  the  first 
batch  of  red  children  sent  to  the  Indian  schools  at 
Carlisle  and  Hampton  Roads.  Hut  the  mother 
— through  lack  of  confidence  in  the  outcome  — 
was  prejudiced  and  obstinate  and  thus  the  matter 
ended. 

With  the  closing  out  of  a  trapper's  life  the 
nece  ssity  ol  the  writer's  frequent  visits  to  the  Aric- 
aree  Indian  camp  at  old  Fort  Berthold  had  ended, 
and  it  was  only  occassionally  after  that  date  1  could 
hear  from  mother  and  child.  Had  learned  that  at 
die  age  ol  thirteen  or  fourteen,  the  girl  married  a 
young  Aricaree,  whose  principal  characteristics, 
as  1  remember  him,  was  of  the  dudish  order  and 
who  seemed  to  give  more  thought  to  the  niceties 
of  personal  appearance  than  the  practical  affairs 
of  everyday  life,  and  as  a  sequence,  although 
taking  a  "land  in  severaly"  claim  on  the  bench 
land  facing  the  coulee  of  hour  Bears  and  builded 
himself  a  house — its  construction  followed  in  dis- 
criptive  text  the  home  of  the  Arkansas  traveler. 
As  a  consequence  an  early  winter  storm  caught 
them  unprepared  to  withstand  its  Arctic  fury,  and 
as  sequel  to  all,  the  child  wife  was  found  in  the 
throes  of  childbirth,  in  isolation  and  with  bitter 
cold  to  indure.  Rosa's  mother  had  but  recently 
been  buried,  and  none  but  a  decrepit  old  grand- 
mother was  with  the  child  matron  to  see  a  little 
duaghter  born  and  the  young  mother  die. 


LITTLE  BEAR  WOMAN.  110 

Here  my  information  about  the  mishaps  of  the 
Reeder  family  had  closed.  But  after  returning  to 
North  Dakota  in  the  spring  of  1892,  from  an 
eastern  tour  of  some  years  duration,  I  made  a 
trip  to  the  new  Indian  Agency  at  Elbowoods.  On 
the  return  early  in  May,  was  caught  in  a  furious 
snow  storm,  and  in  blindness,  myself  and  pony 
half  famished  bumped  up  against  an  Indian  house 
near  the  bluff  opening  at  the  Coulee  of  Four 
Bears  The  domicile  was  occupied  by  Medicine 
Shield,  an  hospitable  Aricaree  and  his  venerable 
helpmate  who  pride  1  herself  in  being  a  sister  of 
John  Grass,  a  leader  among  his  people  and  Chief 
Justice  of  the  Sioux  nation.  This  woman  had 
native  intelligence  of  a  high  degree  and  an  ex- 
traordinary memory  for  details,  some  of  which 
have  already  appeared  in  various  items  of  historic 
interest,  in  preceeding  pages  of  this  work  for  its 
reader's  edihcation. 

During  my  comfortable  stay  there,  shielded 
from  adverse  elements  without,  I  gleaned  much 
passing  information  of  some  local  happenings 
during  my  many  years  absence  from  the  Arica- 
rees.  Among  other  particulars  the  story  of  the 
Reeder  family  was  brought  out  in  detail,  and  was 
told  that  if  I  would  sometime  call  at  the  large 
school  building  at  Elbowoods,  Reeder's  grand- 
daughter could  be  seen  there.  On  my  next  visit 
to  that  place,  through  courtesy  of  Superintendent 
Gates  of  the  Agency  boarding  school,  I  was 
shown  a  pleasant,  olive  faced  little  girl,  known  to 
that  institute  as  Lottie  Styles,  and  in  a  later   visit 


in  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

the  Superintendent  supplemented  his  interest  in 
the  writer's  curiousity  by  having  the  young  Miss 
brush  up  her  hair  and  stand  upon  the  green  lor  a 
glance  at  the  camera. 

While  watching  this  blithesome  little  maid  upon 
the  prairie  sward,  dressed  so  nattily, — all  smiles 
and  all  sunshine, — my  mind  went  hack  to  the 
spring  snow  storm  of  live  years  before,  when 
Medicine  Shield's  wife  had  told  me  for  the  first 
time  the  early  child  life  of  Little  Bear  Woman, 
and  remembering  it  well,  felt  pleased  now  to  bear 
i  iiness  to  the  evolving  contrast. 

In  lier  story  o(  these  intervening  days,  the 
Medicine  Shield  woman  said  at  that  time  among 
the  Aricarees,  deaths  were  both  frequent  and 
numerous,  and  that  the  sudden  passing  away  of 
Mrs.  Reeder  and  her  danyluer  Rosa,  was  almost 
unnoticed  among  members  of  their  tribe.  The 
shriveled  and  nearly  sightless  great  grandmother 
to  Rosa's  child — herself  neglected  by  her  kindred 
in  her  old  age  and  decrepitude,  and  apparently 
forsaken  by  all  the  living  world—  took  her  pre- 
cious charge  wrapped  in  bits  oi  blankets  to  an 
abandoned  and  almost  uninhabitable  dirt  covered 
lodge  situated  among  the  fast  disappearing  group 
of  decaying  habitations  that  marked  the  site  of 
the  last  village  connecting  the  Mandans,  Gros 
Ventres  and  Aricarees  with  the  associations  of 
their  dreamy  past. 

Cooped  in  her  dark  corner,  as  the  days  passed 
one  upon  another,  this  broken  belldame  with  the 
precious  mite  of  inheritance  bundled  in  her  lap  — 


Little  Bear  Woman 


LITTLE  BKAR  WOMAN.  112 

sat  in  silence  save  now  and  then  a  plaintive  native 
ditty  that  came  from  lips  of  parrleshe,  to  quiet  the 
restless  babe.  Her  palsied  arms  swaying  to  and 
tro  served  as  cradle,  rocking  baby  to  sleep  in  its 
fitfull  periods  of  unrest,  and  anon  her  fleshless 
and  withered  hands  smoothed  the  fevered  infant's 
cheeks  in  sickness,  or  caliced  and  bony  fingers 
stroked  down  its  temples  in  the  glow  of  health. 
The  tattered  couch  of  discarded  rags  that  could 
no  longer  be  used  by  the  young  and  the  proud, 
had  been  idly  tossed  to  her  for  such  comfort  as 
could  be  made  of  them  for  herself  and  the  little 
pinched  faced  elf,  that  she  hugged  so  tenderly  to 
her  cold  bosom.  From  her  nest  of  gloom  and 
shabby  poverty  the  old  woman's  mind  often 
wandered  to  other  scenes  of  her  own  young  girl 
life  at  old  Fort  Clark,  or  along  the  banks  of 
Rees  Own  River.  Through  the  cracks  and 
crevices  of  her  mouldy  lodge  roof,  she  beheld  the 
great  firmanent  and  found  a  name  for  the  nest- 
ling babe — Plenty  of  Stars, — although  the  un- 
kempt hair  and  dirty  face  that  greeted  the  child's 
first  toddling  into  the  presence  of  gamins  of  ad- 
joining lodges,  earned  for  itself  from  her  teasers 
the  sobriquet — Little  Bear  Woman. 

As  time  sped  slowly  on  giving  strength  to  the 
young  and  bringing  weakness  to  the  aged,  in  this 
lowly  home  of  the  Aricaree  quarter,  there  came  a 
day  when  out  from  cold  and  clammy  arms  a 
healthy,  though  tear-stained  little  brunette  maid 
was  lifted  up  and  away  by  interested  though  tardy 
helpers,  for  the  chastened  spirit  of   the    good    old 


L13  K  \I.KIIh  >SCOPIC  LIVES 

soul  that  had  watched  over  Little  Bear  Woman 
so  lovingly  and  so  tenderly,  had  gone  forth  to 
join  tlit-  happy  villagers  in  shadow)'  lands  where 
hunger,  neglect  and  distress  are  unknown,  and 
age  not  counted. 


Sioux  Village  on  the  Yellowstone 


THE  TWO   STRANGERS. 

ONE    evening    about  the  20th  of  June,    1868,  a 
group  of  guests  including  the  writer,  sat    in 
the  office  of  the  old  hotel  with  its  varying  names 
of  Ash,    International   and    the   Merchants,    then 
hostel   headquarters   of   Yankton,  Dakota's  terri- 
torial capital.    Supper  was  over,  and  the  loungers 
were  taking  their  ease.     About  this  time,  a  young 
man  sprang  nimbly  in  the  doorway,  and  asked  for 
the  proprietor.      He  seemed  about  twenty-four  or 
twenty-five  years    of  age,  of    medium   size,  dark 
grey  eyes,  smooth  shaven  face   and  dark   head  of 
hair  enclined  to  curl.      His  round  full  face    had    a 
clerical    cast,    and  the  cut  of  his  clothes — if  they 
had    not    such   a  seedy,    threadbare  look — would 
have  solified  this  impression.      On  the    landlord's 
appearance  the  stranger  asked  for  supper,   break- 
fast and  lodging.     With  a  -wift  glance  the   host 
asked  his  guest  for  his  baggage,  and  on   being  in- 
formed that  he  was  not  incumbered,  the  landlord 
told  him  it  was  his  rule  in  such  cases    to    ask   for 
his  pay  in  advance.     This,   after  much    rumaging 
in  his  pockets,  and  some  confusion  in  his  manner, 
was   placed   in  the    landlord's  hands,  after    which 
the  stranger  was  shown  in  the  dining  room.   With 
the  new  arrival's  exit  trom  the  office  some  dispar- 
aging remarks  were  indulged  in  by  the   lounger's 
at  the  expense  of  the  personal  appearance  of  the 


13  KALEIDOSCOPIC    LIVES 

travel-stained  stranger.  One  remarked  that  his 
shirt  bosom  had  not  seen  soap  suds  for  a  month, 
while  another,  espied  the  stranger's  bell  crowned 

beaver  hanging  upon  the  hat  rack,  said  that  ''such 
a  tile  should  be  made  to  uniform  with  the  rest 
ot  his  duds,''  and  proceeded  to  smash  in  its 
crown    with  his  fists. :;: 

In  the  meantime  the  bossee  of  the  hotel  widi 
instructions  from  the  proprietor,  went  out  and 
locked  the  stables  securely,  saying  after  having 
done  so. 

"Yes  sir-ee,  we  have  a  horse  thief  with  us  to 
night,  and  we'll  have  to   watch  things?" 

It  is  needless  to  add  that  the  stranger  was  shad- 
owed until  retiring  to  his  room  for  the  nights  rest. 
Morning  found  everything  safe  about  the  hotel, 
and  the  young  man  under  suspicion's  ban  politely 
announced  that  he  was  seeking  employment,  and 
would  be  glad  to  obtain  it.  The  usual  spring  rush 
of  young  men  from  the  east  had  filled  up  the  va 
cant  places,  and  the  only  job  in  sight  offered  was 
a  line  of  post  holes  to  be  dug  at  the  edge  of  town 
and  although  in  the  full  heat  of  summer  days  he 
cheerfully  accepted  the  task,  and  with  coat  off  and 
bared  head  he  tugged  and  perspired  at  his  work 
the  long  days  through,  and  although  doubtlessly 

*This  act  was  done  by  a  burly  brute  named  Du- 
gan,  win)  through  a  court tiechnecality  had  just  been 
released  from  custody  for  the  cowardly  murder  of 
a  twelve  year  old  boy  at  or  near  Cheyenne.  Wyo- 
ming. A  year  later  lie  reached  the  end  of  a  vigi- 
lante's rope  tor  the  murder  of  an  old  man  near 
Denver.  Colorado. 


THE   TWO  STRANGERS.  H 

well  fagged  when  the  sun  hid  itself  behind  the 
low  range  of  hills  overlooking  this  little  frontier 
capital,  he  did  not  complain  of  it.  The  idlers  on 
the  veranda  of  the  hotel  who  were  vainly  waiting 
Dame  Fortune's  deferred  visit,  with  broad  ^rins 
on  their  faces  and  "cutting"  remarks  with  their 
tongues,  as  they  watched  the  weary  toiler  take 
oft  his  heavy  plug  and  sit  it  on  the  ground  beside 
himself  while  at  work. 

The  writer  of  these  lines  was  employed  at  this 
time  on  a  printer's  case  in  the  old  Dakotain  office 
on  Territorial  book  work,  and  after  meals  at  the 
hotel  it  was  customary  before  going  to  my  case  in 
the  office  to  take  a  few  minutes  stroll  to  the  river 
front  in  recreative  exercise.  I  noted,  also  at  this 
time  that  the  stranger  had  the  same  habit  and  we 
sometimes  met  there.  One  morning  after  break- 
fast an  incident  of  this  kind  occurred.  The 
opening  of  the  day  was  beautiful, — a  heavy  fog 
just  raising  above  the  sand  bars  in  our  front, 
while  the  big  rising  sun  seemed  in  crimson  blush, 
now  and  again  obscured  by  the  passing  of  the 
fog  veil,  To  our  right  under  the  chalky  bluffs, 
Presho's  woods — now  but  a  memory — its  forest  of 
dew  bathed  leaves  glinted  and  danced  in  the  rays 
of  the  sun  beams.  In  the  high  willows  facing  the 
timber,  fifteen  or  twenty  lodges  of  the  red  San- 
tees  were  serenely  poising^  and  now  and  again  a 
wreath  of  blue  smoke  curling  high  in  air,  A  few 
of  the  swarthy  occupants  were;  sauntering  upon 
the  sands  or  fileing  along  the  narrow  foot  trail  to- 
ward's     "Shad-owa-towa"    or    "Charley  Pecotte's 


18  KALEIDOSCOPIC    LIVES 

town"  as  the  native  red  people  thereabout  persist 
ed  in  calling  the  ambitious  capital  city    to  the  dis- 
traction of  some  of  its  good  people. 

The  stranger  stood  for  some  moments  with  a 
gloomy  face  as  he  peered  out  upon  the  river,  and 
the  living  panorama  spread  before  him.  Whatever 
his  thoughts  were  I  could  not  conjure.  Was  he  ga- 
zing beyond  the  rising  mist,  if  so  what  did  he  see? 
Suddenly  the  lines  of  his  smooth  round  face  lost 
its  care  worn  look,  his  grey  eyes  heretofore  shaded 
or  hid  in  their  sockets  by  pertruding  brows,  now 
seemed  beaming-  in  playfull  mood,  and  assuming 
an  elocutionary  attitude  and  waving  his  hand  in 
the  direction  of  the  tepees  in  the  willows,  with 
real  eloquent  pathos  declaimed  Pope's  beautiful 
lines  beginning  with: — 

"Lo  the  poor  Indian,  whose  untutored  mind 
Sees  God  in  the  clouds,  and  hears  him  in  the  wind. 
His  soul  proud  science  never  taught  to  stray 
Far  as  the  solar  walk  or  milky  way; 
Yet  simple  nature  to  his  hopes  has  given, 
Behind  the  cloud-topped  hill,  a  humbler  heaven; 
Some  safer  world  in  depth  of  moods  embraced, 
S..me  happier  island  in  the  watery  waste, 
Where  slaves  once  more  their  native  land  behold, 
No  fiends tormants, no  Christian  thirst  for  gold." 

After  a  few  compliments  on  his  declamatory 
style,  we  dropped  into  a  discourse,  ana  in  conclu- 
ding said  that  he  supposed,  in  his  present  plight, 
it  would  be  hard  work  to  convince  the  people  of 
Yankton  that  he  was  the  brother  of  a  doctor;  the 
son  ol  a  doctor;  a  graduate  of  Ann   Arbor    Uni- 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES.  118 

versity;  a  practitioner  physician  himself  with  a  grad- 
uating course  finished  and  a  diploma  to  show  for 
it.  In  reply  I  freely  admitted  such  a  declaration 
would  be  in  the  nature  of  a  surprise  to  the  people 
there;  that  there  was  room  for  another  physician 
in  the  Territory;  that  I  would  issue  the  initial 
number  of  the  Dakota  Democrat  in  a  few  days, 
and  as  an  earnest  of  my  faith  in  his  ascending 
star  would  publish  his  card  in  the  first  issue  with- 
out any  charge  to  himself — thus  was  a  surprise 
sprung  on  that  line,  in  the  first  issue  of  the  Demo- 
crat, July  Slh,   1868. 

About  two  weeks  or  more  after  the  paper  had 
appeared,  this  doctor  or  "quack"  as  the  loungers 
persisted  in  calling  him — invited  me  to  his  room 
at  our  hotel.  He  was  in  good  spirits  and  said 
things  were  going  right  with  him.  On  his  table 
a  brimming  bucket  of  beer  had  been  placed,  fresh 
on  tap  from  Russtacher's  frontier  brewery.  We 
were  not  alone.  Sitting  on  a  chair  and  reclining 
against  the  wall  was  the  face  of  a  stranger.  He 
arose  and  was  introduced  as  "Mr.  Stevenson,  of 
Iowa,  tragedian  and  dramatic  reader."  The  man 
was  young,  tall,  rather  sandy  complexioned,  with  a 
gruf'Jtearty,  self-assuring  manner.  Had  just  took 
a  run  up  there  from  Sioux  City,  he  said,  to  see  a 
link  in  his  destiny.  The  link  though  a  lately 
welded  one  he  added,  was  none  the  less  well 
forged,  and  of  good  material. 

After  some  pleasant  repartee,  in  which  I  joined 
they  mutually  told  the  story  of  their  first  meeting 
at  Missouri  Valley  Junction,  some   weeks   before 


L19  KALEIDOSCOPIC   LINKS. 

They  were  both  financially  stranded,  confided  their 
troubles  to  each  other,   and   mutually   agreed    to 

"raise  the  wind."  They  footed  it  over  to  Mag- 
nolia, twenty  miles  or  more,  rented  a  hall  on  pro- 
mis*  s,  "stood  off"  the  printer  and  billed  the  town 
for  Shakesperian  readings  and  comicalities.  After 
two  or  three  nights, — printer's  bill  paid,  they  came 
up  the  grade  and  landed  with  three  dollars  and 
seventy -five  cents  wrapped  up  in  the  company  ex- 
chequer. A  division  of  sentiment  as  to  business 
prospects  in  that  town  demanded  a  division  of  com- 
pany property,  and  stranger  Number  One  crossed 
the  Big  Sioux  bridge  with  one  dollar  and  thirty- 
five  cents  to  meet  his  star  of  destiny  in  the  land  of 
the  Dakotas.  It  was  in  this  manner  they  had 
told  their  story.  After  the  departure  of  the  next 
Iowa  bound  stage,  the  face  of  stranger  Number 
Two,  was  missing  at  the  International. 

Many  years  later — being  in  a  reminiscent  mood 
while  resting  at  a  ranch — I  told  this  story.  Com- 
rade Mercer,  who  had  been  listening,  thought  he 
could  help  me  a  little  further  along  with  stranger 
Number  Two,  and  begged  pardon  for  the  inter- 
ruption.    Here  is  what  he  said: 

"I  was  down  working  in  a  brick  yard  in  Sioux 
City,  Iowa,  in  the  autumn  of  1868.  One  night  in 
early  September,  I  saw  a  large  crowd  gathering 
in  front  of  the  balcony  of  the  leading  hotel.  Up- 
on enquiry,  I  was  told  it  was  an  open  air  political 
meeting, — so  elbowed  my  way  along  the  street, 
following  up  the  crowd.  I  could  hear  the  speaker 
making  his  sallies,  and  see  the  clouds  of  hats    go 


THE  TWO  STRANGERS.  120 

up,  and  hear  the  thunders  of  applause  that  greeted 
his  eloquent  passages  of  approving  words. 

Who  is  that  citizen  making  all  that  uproar  up 
yonder,"  I  asked  of  an  old  citizen  as  I  passed 
along. 

"Oh,  that  is  Orator  Stevenson,"  replied  old 
citizen. 

"Who  is  Orator  Stevenson?"  I  ventured  to  ask 
for  I  was  an  Eastern  tenderfoot  then. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  replied  the  old  citizen 
tersely,  ''the  Republican  State  Central  Committee 
have  engaged  him  to  even  up  the  State  ticket 
majorities  with  Grant  and  Colfax  and  I  guess  he 
can  do  it— if  any  talker  can." 

And  it  came  to  pass  that  the  judgement  of  the 
Central  Committee  was  correct.  The  State  ticket 
evened  well  up  with  the  National. 

About  the  horse  thief  suspect  of  the  Interna- 
tional— Yankton's  quack  saw  bones — or  Stranger 
Number  One — the  reader  might  kindly  enquire — 
what  had  become  of  him.  We  can  answer,  refer- 
ring to  the  old  adage  about  sometime  deception 
on  first  appearance,  that  it  will  hold  good  in  this 
case.  Stranger  Number  One  had  a  large  com- 
pass to  go  on,  but  in  our  concluding  here,  his 
later  movements  will  be  curtly  told.  Sometime 
after  the  events  I  have  related  in  these  opening 
pages,  he  courted  and  married  a  daughter  of  the 
leading  Dakotian — called  in  those  early  days  the 
Father  of  the  Territory.  He  also  like  Stranger 
Number  Two.  became  a  party  leader  and  an  able, 
eloquent  public  speaker.  And  medical  quack — 
well — for  over  twenty  years  thereafter — or  until 
his  death — he  stood  Territorial  Dakota's  formost 
physician. 


CHIEF  OF  TH3  3TRAH3LSR3. 

Till",  following  entry  taken  from  the  diary  of 
[oseph  Deitrich,  woodchopper,  dotted  down 
November,  1869,  while  at  the  stockaded  wood- 
yard  at  Toughtimber,  will  serve  as  introductory 
to  this  chronicle; 

"Nov  19  Friday— Weather  splendid  all  day.  Went 
out  hunting  in  the  afternoon  with  Bill.  He  shot  a 
big  buck  deer." 

The  fortunate  slayer  of  the  antlered  buck  above 
mentioned  was  a  verdant  appearing  fellow  called 
by  his  comrades  Big  Bill,  from  his  oversize,  being 
but  a  beardless  youth  of  twenty  winters.  It  was 
probably  Bill's  first  trophy  in  the  deer  killing  line 
and  it  was  the  first  fresh  meat  brought  into  the 
cook  room  since  the  camp  was  organized,  the  big 
chap  from  Arkansas  was  the  hero  of  the  evening 
following  this  event.  He  exploited  the  deeds  of 
his  sire  as  one  of  Quantrel's  men,  and  intimated 
that  notwithstanding  his  own  youthful  appearance 
he  too  had  followed  that  bold  guerilla  chief  on 
his  Kansas  raid  that  ended  in  the  sacking  of  Law- 
rence. Then  he  recounted  some  previous  exper- 
ience as  a  wood  chopper,  and  explained  a  kind 
of  an  artistic  move  with  the  axe  blade,  which  he 
termed  "flopping."  Bill's  story  and  the  droll 
native  Arkansas  twang  in  its  recitation,  put  his 
group  of  listeners  in  gladsome  mood,  and  Johnny 
Deitrich  suggested  that  as  the  Indian  method  of 
bestowing    proper   names  was  the  right  thing,  he 


JOSEPH  DIETRICH. 

One  of  the  pioneers  of  the  Missouri 

Slope  Country. 


CHIEF  OF  THE  STRANGLERS  122 

suggested  that  William  the  slayer  of  the  antlered 
buck  be  duly  annointed  and  chnstianed  "Flopping 
Bill,"  which  motion  was  acclaimed  by  all  present, 
and  thus  was  the  appellation  confirmed. 

Toward  springtime  dissatisfaction  ran  rampant 
in  the  wood  camp  and  a  general  breaking  away 
followed  among  the  choppers.  Bill  with  some  of 
the  others  sought  employment  at  Fort  Berthold 
Indian  agency,  but  drifted  down  to  the  Painted 
Woods  after  the  ice  break  up  and  was  one  of  the 
court  witnesses  in  the  Reeder  murder  case  putting 
in  some  time  at  Yankton  during  that  trial.  Then 
taking  part  in  the  land  rush  at  the  Northern  Pa- 
cific crossing  of  the  Missouri  he  located  upon  a 
land  claim  adjoining  the  prospective  city  of  Bur- 
leigh, and  near  the  site  of  Fort  Lincoln — the  mod- 
ern. Discouraged  at  his  prospects  financial,  the 
big  Arkansan  sold  out  his  farm  for  a  few  dollars 
and  worked  his  way  up  to  Fort  Peck,  about  which 
country  the  hostile  Uncapapas,  Santeesand  upper 
Yanktoney  held  sway.  The  old  time  traders'  diet 
of  buffalo  hump  and  pemmican  was  in  vogue  at 
that  establishment  of  the  Durfee  &  Peck  company 
and  together  with  the  stern  nature  of  company's 
resident  agent,  made  life  well  nigh  unindurable  to 
Mr.  Cantrell,  but  he  was  in  a  country  were  grum- 
bling ceased  to  be  a  palliative,  and  the  novice  to 
toughness  must  stand  up  under  all  that  was  given 
him — or  take  to  the  river   lor  clearance. 

One  day  in  company  with  Billy  Benware,  a  Sioux 
half  breed,  Bill  was  detailed  to  water  a  few  head 
of  cattle    belonging    to    the    post,    and    by    some 


l-j  ;  K  U-EJD08C0PIC  LINKS 

miscalculation,  drove  ^ur  ol  the  bunch  in  a  mire 
huh-  at  tin-  waters  edge,  ami  the  united  assistance 
of  the  two  drivers  were  required  to  set  the  ani- 
mal on  its  feet.  Cantrell  carried  his  gun  as  was 
the  usual  habit  of  all  the  trader's  employees  about 
Peck,  but  through  some  negligence  Benware  had 
left  his  ritle  at  the.  fort.  In  going  to  the  mired 
bovine's  assistance,  Cantrellhad  lain  his  gun  down 
on  a  tuft  of  grass  some  twenty  yards  from  the 
mire  hole.  All  this  time,  as  it  afterward  appeared, 
five  Sioux  warriors  had  the  willows  on  the  two 
herdsmen,  and  at  a  given  signal  jumped  out  from 
the  bush  with  the  idea  of  cutting  oft"  the  escape 
of  their  expected  prey.  Benware,  by  nature  and 
training  ever  elert,  saw  the  Indians  emerge  from 
cover,  and  without  warning  or  outcry,  ran  up  the 
bank  and  seized  Cantrell'sgun  and  with  the  agility 
for  which  he  was  noted,  made  off  with  it  and  suc- 
cessfully ran  the  gauntlet  to  the  fort.  The  reds 
somewhat  baffled  at  Benvvare's  escape  turned 
their  attention  to  Cantrell,  who,  himself  unarmed, 
ran  into  a  bunch  of  willows  and  lay  down  to 
await  such  disposition  as  circumstances  would 
bring.  Before  reaching  his  covert,  however,  a 
bullet  from  one  of  the  Indian's  guns  entered  his 
groin,  which  seemed  a  mortal  wound  to  him,  and 
he  even  feared  his  own  heart  throbs,  would  betray 
his  hiding  place  to  the  blood  hunters.  The  Indians 
were  not  sure  that  their  trapped  foe  was  gunless, 
therefore  went  about  encompassing  his  destruction 
in  a  gingerly  way.  Their  natural  fear  for  an  en- 
emy with  the  "brush"  on  them  was  life  for  Cantrell, 


CHIEF  OF  THE  STRANGLERS  124 

for  after  a  few  circumlocutions,  with  deslutory 
shots  ru  the  spot  where  the  now  badly  wounded 
man  was  supposed  to  be,  they  yelled  a  few  choice 
epithets  in  broken  English,  made  off  in  time  to 
avoid  a  conflict  with  a  party  of  rescuers  coming 
from  the  fort. 

For  several  months  after  his  mishap,  Cantrell 
lay  in  the  surgeon's  care  at  the  Fort  Buford  mil- 
itary hospital.  His  case  was  a  critical  one,  but 
a  robust  physique  pulled  him  through.  Some 
months  later  he  again  appeared  in  the  Fort  Peck 
country  and  turned  up  as  a  woodyard  proprietor  . 
in  one  of  the  Missouri's  timber  points  in  that  sec- 
tion. Matrimonially  inclined  he  had  ''spliced  up" 
with  a  fair  daughter  of  the  Assinaboine  tribe,  and 
with  a  good  team  of  ponies,  and  ready  wood  sales 
to  passing  steamers,  the  Cantrell  establishment 
seemed  in  a  prosperous  way.  But  like  all  lands 
where  the  methods  of  the  Bedoun  prevail,  peace 
and  sunshine  to  the  couple  were  of  the  short  shift 
order.  ''Nosey"  and  a  few  other  disreputable 
characters  had  been  driven  away  from  the  Whoop 
Up  country  by  the  Canadian  mounted  police  took 
refuge  on  the  Missouri  in  some  points  below  the 
mouth  of  Musselshell  river,  but  were  to  steeped 
in  their  manner  of  life  to  heed  the  lesson  of  its 
mishaps — and  figure  out  the  risk  of  continuance. 
After  having  stolen  or  swindled  through  bad  rum, 
all  the  ponies  they  could  from  both  the  northern 
and  southern  Assinnaboines,  they  "let  themselves 
loose"  on  the  herds  of  Granville  Stuart — a  British 
subject — partly  in  revenge  for  their  discomfort  at 


L25  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

and  around  Whoop  U|>.  and  partly  for  the  rev- 
enue that  come  with  good  horses  A  regular  line 
was  established  along  the  Missouri  as  far  south  as 
Bismarck  and  the  run  made  full  handed  both  ways. 
This  band  was  no*  numerous  but  active.  They 
established  themselves  at  some  woodyards  by 
either  buying  out,  or  running  out  the  owner, — if 
they  could  not  trust  him.  One  of  the  first  that 
was  tabooed  by  these  gentry  was  Flopping  Bill. 
He  was  "set-a-foot"  early  one  summer's  morning 
and  he  was  compelled  to  take  trip  to  the  fort  (or 
the  purchase  of  another  team — at  the  loss  of  con- 
siderable time  and  expense.  Again  he  was  visited 
by  the  marauders  and  again  was  his  wood  bank- 
ing team  missing.  Thinking  the  burses  had  only 
strayed,  this  time,  he  made  a  hunt  for  them  but 
on  his  return  was  dismayed  to  find  that  his  South 
Assinnaboine  bride  did  not  come  to  greet  him  as 
was  her  usual  way.  She  too,  had  been  stolen  or 
coaxed  away.  Bill  had  heard  of  the  proverb,  that 
"Bad  luck  like  crows  never  come  singly."  The 
imprint  of  strange  horse  hoofs  sign  was  unmis- 
takable and  boot  tracks  of  others  had  obliterated 
his  own.  Strong  man  that  he  was  William  Can- 
trell  could  only  seat  himself  down  on  his  deserted 
door  step  and  cry.  And  yet — short  as  the  lime 
was — while  he  had  sit  down  a  Dr.  Jekyll,  he 
arose  a  \Tr.  Hyde. 

In  the  early  summer  of  I885  in  one  of  the  con- 
tiguous points  near  where  the  waters  of  the  Mus- 
celshell  river  empties  into  the  Missouri — a  lonely 


CHIEF  OF  THE  STRANGLERS  126 

cabin  could  be  seen  by  passing"  rivermen,  and  ad- 
mired both  for  its  apparent  coziness  and  the  neat- 
ness of  its  surroundings.  It  had  but  one  inmate, 
an  old  man  of  perhaps  sixty  years  of  age.  While 
courteous  and  kind  to  strangers  and  wayfarers, 
he  was  not  affable,  and  was  what  might  be  termed 
a  recluse — as  the  world  judges.  He  was  a  native 
of  some  southeastern  State,  probably  Kentucky  or 
West  Virginia,  and  in  ordinary  affairs  his  manner 
betokened  the  well-bred  man.  In  his  trim  bach- 
elor quarters  he  kept  a  few  choice  books  on  mis- 
cellaneous subjects  in  which  he  was  found  perusing 
much  of  his  spare  time.  A  few  pine  knots  for  the 
passing  steamers  was  his  only  visable  means  of 
support,  but  undoubedly  there  was  a  "strong  box" 
hid  some  where  about  his  cabin  that  had  come  up 
with  him  from  the  southland.  But  he  was  guarded 
in  his  purchases,  and  it  was  not  until  he  had  made 
many  trips  to  Clendennin's  old  trading  post  on 
foot  for  his  grocery  supply,  did  the  thought  occur 
to  him  to  purchase  a  pony,  which  he  did  one  day 
from  some  presumedly  cow  boys  lounging  about 
the  post.  He  had  come  up  from  a  country  where 
no  brands  were  used  and  the  few  herogliphics  that 
he  found  upon  the  flank  of  his  new  purchase, 
was  all    Greek  to  him  as  far  as  he  could  know. 

One  warm  summer  afternoon,  however,  as  this 
hermit  of  the  Musselshell  was  enjoying  the  cool 
of  his  shady  verandah — with  pipe  and  book,  a 
party  of  cowboys — perhaps  fifteen  in  all,  came 
trooping  along  the  river  trail,  raising  a  cloud  of 
dust    that   swept    across  the  prairie.     To  the  old 


127  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

man  there  was  nothing  remarkable  in  this  save  the 
number,  which  was  unusual  to  him  since  his  resi- 
dence there.  It  was  not  until  after  a  halt  had 
been  made  opposite  his  picketed  pony  that  was 
contentedly  feeding  on  a  fresh  grass  patch  several 
yards  from  the  trail.  Two  of  the  horsemen  rode 
out  from  the  group  toward  the  busy  pony  with  the 
evident  idea  of  inspecting  or  looking  him  over. 
Then  one  of  them  motioned  the  others  to  come 
up  when  the  entire  party  grouped  around  the 
picketed  animal.  After  some  consultation,  four 
men  of  the  group  started  toward  the  cabin,  while 
the  balance  of  them  proceeded  to  a  clump  of  trees 
facing  the  cabin  from  the  river  bank.  The  old 
man  now  became  somewhat  interested.  He  had 
laid  aside  his  book  and  stood  in  his  doorway,  lean- 
ing negligently  against  the  casing  as  the  horse- 
men approached  him.  He  had  no  word  of  wel- 
come for  his  visitors  nor  did  they  seem  to  wish  for 
any.  Two  of  them  dismounted  and  walked  up  to 
the  old  gentleman  and  each  grabbed  an  arm  and 
asked  him  to  take  a  walk.  Strange,  indeed,  but 
he  offered  no  resistance — not  even  expostulation. 
As  they  walked  down  the  recluse's  familiar  water 
path  to  the  river,  they  witnessed  some  of  the  group 
throwing  a  rope  over  the  limb  of  a  tree,  and  when 
the  trio  from  the  cabin  arrived  under  this  canopy 
of  green  leaves — a  giant  with  the  authority  of 
a  leader,  said  curtly: 

"Rope  him!" 

A  moment    later    the  coil  of  a  rope  was  placed 
a!  out  the  old  man's  neck. 


CHIEF  OF  THE  STRANGLED  128 

Again  the  leader  of  the  band  spoke:  "Old  man 
if  yon  have  anything  to  say — why,  say  it  now.  We 
have  found  you  holding  a  horse  with  the  Granville 
Stuart  brand.     Produce  your  bill  of  sale  " 

"I  have  no  bill  of  sale,"  replied  the  prisoner.  "I 
know  nothing  about  your  brands.  I  bought  that 
animal  from  a  party  such  as  you.  They  got  my 
money  and  left  me  the  pony.    That  is  all." 

"That  won't  do,  old  man.      Make   ready  men." 

The  rope  was  adjusted  about  the  prisoner's 
neck  in  silence  and  his  arms  stoutly  pinioned. 

"A  short  shift — old  man.  Have  you  anything 
to  say." 

Thus  spoke  the  leader  as  last  appeal. 

The  sun  made  blood  red  by  a  veil  of  blue  smoke 
was  slowly  dropping  behind  the  Judith  mountains 
to  the  westward.  Sounds  of  the  even  flow  of  fast 
moving  waters  was  wafted  from  the  nearby 
Missouri,  and  nature  could  not  have  seemed 
more  beautiful  and  entrancing  to  the  condemned 
man  than  in  those  few  moments  of  silence  as  his 
eyes  followed  the  declining  sun  until  its  last  rays 
were  hid  behind  the  jagged  peaks  of  the  sumbre 
mountains.  His  thoughts  were  his  own.  He  was 
now  an  actor  in  a  play.  Was  it  a  farce  or  tragedy? 
Was  it  jest  or  earnest.  No  matter.  Life  to  him 
may  have  been  sweet  or  it  may  have  been  bitter. 
It  was  for  him  to  know — not  for  others  to  care. 
He  had  never  been  a  suppliant  or  a  begger.  He 
would  not  be  now — even  with  lile  in  forfeit.  But 
though  silent  so  long  in  watching  the  sinking  sun, 
he  had  not  forgotten  to  answer  his  captor's  ques- 


129  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

lion,  and  with  a  look  of   firmness  as  he   gazed    in 
the  face  of  the  scrowling  crowd,  he  liaid  bluntly* 

"I  have  nothing  to  say!" 

"String  him  up,"  came  as  a  command  from  the 
leader  of  the  stranglers,  and  with  a  dozen  cowboys 
pulling  the  rope  taut  on  the  choking  man  until  he 
hung  by  the  neck  limp  and  still,  and  thus  perished 
the  first  of  thirty-two  people  put  to  death  by  Mop- 
ping Bill  and  his  paid  hirelings  sent  out  by  two 
or  three  rich  stock  owners  to  avenge  themselves 
of  the  losses  sustained  from  the  depredations  of 
the  Nosey  gang  of  professional  stock  thieves. 

"If  that  old  fellow  is  a  horse  thief  he's  a  queer 
one,"  said  one  of  the  stranglers  as  they  rode  from 
the  man  whom  no  mercy  had  been  shown,  and  the 
recluse  who  had  probably  fled  his  home  from  dis- 
appointment or  family  trouble  would  not  try  to 
save  his  own  life  even  though  its  price  was  at  the 
expense  of  an  undeserved  stigma. 

Some  days  after  the  scene  above  described,  the 
steamer  Helena  put  into  shore  at  one  of  the  yards 
at  Long  Point,  to  wood-up  for  the  Fort  Benton 
run.  The  prow  of  the  boat  had  hardly  touched 
the  bank,  and  the  gang  plank  still  in  the  hands  of 
the  placing  crew,  when  a  wild  looking  young  wo- 
man with  a  babe  in  her  arms,  came  bounding  out 
from  a  clump  of  bushes  and  leaped  upon  the  pro- 
jecting plank  before  the  astonished  rousters  could 
unbraid  her  for  her  daring  and  dangerous  feat. 
But  she  seemed  speechless  and  terror  sticken  for 
several  minutes  and  could  only  point  toward    the 


CHIEF  OF  THE  STRANGLERS  130 

cabin  beyond  the  wood  pile   before  she  collapsed 
into  hysterics  on  the  steamer's  deck. 

The  crew  soon  discovered  the  cause.  In  the 
rear  of  the  cabin  stretched  the  body  of  a  man  from 
the  limb  of  a  tree.  He  was  hanging  by  the  neck 
from  a  rope's  end,  and  although  quite  dead  his 
body  was  warm,  and  from  the  woman's  story,  he 
was  strangled  but  a  short  time  before  the  arrival 
of  the  steamer.  He  was  taken  from  his  work  by 
a  band  of  horseman,  whose  leader — a  giant — was 
deaf  to  all  entreaty,  and  unmindful  of  the  real  sit- 
uation to  which  the  facts  upon  investigation  would 
warrant. 

About  these  times,  also,  the  cordon  of  the 
stranglers  drew  about  Nosey  and  his  half-dozen 
ruffians,  who  were  the  primary  cause  of  all  these 
disturbances  along  the  Upper  Missouri.  For  the 
most  part  the  members  of  this  gang  of  thieves  had 
made  headquarters  at  an  old  hunting  camp  at  Long 
Point,  but  shifted  about  to  other  isolated  cabins 
and  camps  between  Fort  Peck  and  the  mouth  of 
Arrow  creek.  Honest  woodyardmen,  or  the  lowly 
wolfer  and  trapper  were  bound  to  be  comprom- 
ised in  some  manner  with  this  gang  if  they  would 
live  in  that  region.  At  best  they  must  remain 
passive  to  their  lawlessness,  otherwise  would  meet 
the  same  list  of  mishaps  that  had  befallen  Flop- 
ping Bill  in  his  woodyard  experience  which  we 
have  chronicled.  They  had  no  fear  of  the  law 
abiding,  but  they  did  fear  the  lawless.  The  law 
could  not  protect  them  in  their  isolation   but    the 


131  KALEIDOSCOPE  L1VKS 

robbers  could  harm  and  harrass  them  as  they  had 
Can tr ell  and  others  who  were  not  to  their  liking. 

While  these  bands  of  hangmen  sent  out  by  the 
Montana  stock  association  may  have  committed 
grevious  error  in  the  murder  of  some  innocent 
people,  the  killing  of  Nosey  and  several  of  his 
band  near  the  prairies'  edge  at  Long  Point  did 
much  toward  compensation  for  their  misdirected 
zeal  in  the  outset.  Notwithstanding  the  boastful 
swagger  and  gall  of  these  outlaws,  the  old  adage 
held  good  tHat  there  is  "no  tight  in  a  horse  thief" 
and  that  his  reputation  like  that  of  the  cottontail 
rabbit  rests  on  the  use  of  his  legs.  While  a  few 
rifle  shots  were  fired  by  them  as  a  semblance  of 
defense,  yet  with  the  exception  of  two  or  three 
who  escaped  down  the  Missouri  in  a  skiff,  the 
Nosey  gang  was  exterminated  without  the  loss  of 
a  man,  or  a  scratch  even,  to  a  member  of  the 
Flopping  Bill  party.  That  the  lesson  of  this  raid 
of  death  was  a  needed  one,  few  conversant  with 
the  situation  can  gainsay,  but  the  work  of  irre- 
sponsible mobs  or  gatherings  of  men  drawn  to- 
gether by  impulse  or  excitement  too  often  commit 
a  greater  error  than  that  which  they  would  rem- 
edy.* 

*One  evening  in  the  latter  part  of  March  1883, 
two  travelers  called  at  the  writer's  hermitage  at  the 
Painted  Woods. and  askedfor  permission  for  a  camp 
and  recuperation  for  themselves  and  ponies.  One 
of  these  was  a  young  man  named  O'Neal,  known 
in  early  day  Bismarck  as  an  employee  about  Scott's 
pioneer  livery  stable,  and  for  all  the  scribe  had 
known  to  the  contrary,  had  borne  a  fair  reputation. 
The  day  following  came  on  a  blizzard,  and   O'Neal 


William  Cantrell.  I  Flopping  Bill. 


CHIEF  OF  THE  STRANGLERS  132 

said  he  was  glad,  to  make  a  lay-over  as  that  gave 
him  the  opportunity  he  had  purposely  sought.  He 
had  known  of  me  as  a  professional  trapper  and 
wolfer,  and  that  I  was  well  acquainted  in  the  upper 
White  Earth  country.  With  limited  experience 
in  the  calling,  and  with  but  a  steamboat  rouster's 
circumscribed  views  as  to  the  region,  they  would 
be  thankful  for  such  information  as  I  would  give. 
Such  knowledge  was  given  unstinted,  and  without 
the  selfish  fear  of  rivalry  that  might  govern  one  in 
the  calling — for  attraction  to  that  manner  of  life 
had  passed  me  by. 

I  had  heard  of  the  arrival  of  these  amateur  wolf- 
ers  in  the  White  Earth  region,  and  of  the  meagre 
revenue  that  usually  attend  the  efforts  of  the  nov- 
ice. Had  learned  that  the  Jim  Smith  gang  of  out- 
laws and  horse  thieves  were  making  headquarters 
about  Grinnell's  place,  and  knew  they  had  no  time 
for  a  camper  about  there  who  was  liable  to  see  too 
much,  and  Grinnell,  himself  who  kept  an  open  bar, 
could  note  more  profit  from  the  pockets  of  success- 
ful horse  thieves,  than  the  usually  hard-up  wolfer, 
found  an  easy  conscience  in  helping  "freeze  them 
out."  O'Neal  was  particularly  obnoxious  to  them, 
so  after  being  harrassed  in  various  ways  for  some 
months,  he  finally  concluded  to  get  out  of  harm's 
way  and  return  down  the  trail  to   Bi*marck. 

Now  behold  the  irony  of  fate  ! 

The  Jim  Smith  gang  had  been  down  operating 
among  the  new  settlers  of  McLean  county  and  had 
stolen  many  of  their  work  horses  at  a  critical  time, 
and  naturally  the  farmers  were  in  a  ferment. 
Knowing  this,  soon  after  O'Neal's  departure,  some 
of  the  Smith  gang  by  way  of  a  practical  joke,  wrote 
a  note  to  some  Fort  Berthold  and  Hancock  parties 
that  there  was  a  horse  thief  coming  down  the  river 
trail,  and  to  look  out  for  him.  At  Berthold,  O'Neal 
was  joined  by  a  home-sick  youth  who  had  unloaded 
himself  from  an  up-bound  steamer.  The  two,  tired 
out  with  the  day's  journey  went  into  camp  along  the 
highway.  Their  arrival  was  made  known,  and  long 
before  the  midnight  hour,  were  awakened  from 
sweet  slumber  by  a  dozen  or  more  excited  men  who 
bound  and  hurried  them  over  to  the  stage  road 
and  telegraph  line  and  halted  at  a  coulee  near  the 


133 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 


old  Reifsnider  place  and  within  two  miles  of  Weller 
station.  The  boy  had  plead  his  caae  so  clear  that  he 
was  released,  but  O'Neal  was  not  so  fortunate.  He 
did  not  deny  coming  down  from  GrinnelPs,  from 
whence  that  mysterious  message  had  come  But  he 
knew,  he  said,  that  he  neither  stole  horses  or  dealt 
in  stolen  horses,  and  if  given  any  time  at  all — could 
prove  it.  But  again  came  up  that  mysterious  word 
from  Grinnell's,  and  the  cry  went  up  "hang  him, 
hang  him"  and  all  pleading  for  life  was  ended. 
The  dawn  of  day  that  followed  revealed  a  tragedy— 
as  the  proceeding  darkness  had  covered  a  grievous 
wrong — and  that  it  must  stand  as  such  for  ever  and 
ever. 


WHERE  THE  SPOTTED  OTTER  PLAY. 

NE  of  the  most  noticeable  landmarks  along  the 
Upper  Missouri  river  are  the  Square  Buttes,  a 
group  of  high,  square  topped  hills  located  on  the 
west  bank,  and  about  fiifteen  miles  above  the  con- 
fluence of  Heart  river  with  the  main  stream.  These 
buttes  are  on  a  level  with  the  highest  ridges  of 
the  prairie  thereabout,  but  a  strata  of  stone  near 
the  surface  had  been  protection  to  any  change  in 
formation  in  the  thousands  of  years  that  they  have 
stood  as  a  kind  of  gateway  in  the  passage  of 
this  mighty  artery  in  its  surge  and  flow  to  the  sea. 

To  a  passenger  in  a  boat  following  the  river  in 
its  winding,  or  to  a  land  traveler  moving  on  either 
side  of  these  hills,  the  peculiar  grouping  is  such, 
that  they  have  all  the  peculiarity  of  the  moving 
picture  in  its  numerous  and  novel  transformations 
that  present  themselves  to  the  observer  in  the 
various  changes  of  his  position. 

On  the  west  and  south  side  of  these  hills  a 
small  creek  twists  and  curves — now  among  jutted 
bluffs  and  cut  banks — now  on  meadow  and  plain. 
The  stream  is  fed  by  numerous  springs  gushing 
down  from  the  timber  lined  seams  among  the 
buttes — icy  cold  in  summer  but  in  winter  days  the 
temperature  of  the  springs  were  such  that  ice  could 
not  form,  and  snow  melted  as  it  fell.  Here  it  was 
that  the  frog  found  its  natural  haven,  came  and 
multiplied,  as  well  as  the  feeders  upon  its  flesh. 


13.-)  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

All  animated  kind  thrive  best  where  conditions 
to  their  thrift  is  best.  Thus  it  was  the  little  creek 
whose  waters  laved  the  Square  Buttes  had  in  the 
long  ago  been  known  to  the  primitive  red  hunter 
as  the  place  "where  the  spotted  otter  play."  Ex- 
cepting only  the  eagle,  the  horse,  the  dog  or  the 
buffalo,  the  otter  was  an  animal  that  entered  more 
largely  into  the  life  of  the  wild  Indian  than  any 
other  not  above  named.  It  was  not  its  flesh  for 
food — for  that  was  too  rancid  even  for  the  stomach 
of  a  meat  eater — nor  yet  the  otter's  glossy  fur; 
neither  was  it  for  its  service  as  a  robe  or  covering 
that  laid  claim  to  the  Indian's  adoration,  but  the 
virtue  its  fur-lined  skin  possessed  as  "medicine"  in 
his  prayer  for  good  fortune,  and  as  a  weapon  to 
ward  off  the  machinations  of  the  evil  one. 

As  with  the  white  buffalo  to  the  Indian,  a  freak, 
in  animal  color  always  played  deeply  upon  his 
superstition,  and  as  an  ordinary  otter  skin  was  re- 
garded as  supernal  in  its  power,  what  must  have 
been  his  veneration  for  the  strangly  gifted  otter, 
robed  in  its  parti-colored  fur  suit  of  black  and 
white? 

On  the  writer's  advent  as  a  fur  trapper  on  the 
Upper  Missouri — with  previous  experience  among 
the  Pawnees  of  Loup  river  as  a  starter — otter 
trapping  became  a  specialty  and  continued  as  such 
during  the  time  spent  following  that  avocation. 
About  that  time  Jefferson  Smith  the  veteran  tra- 
der among  the  Gros  Ventres    who  had  put    many 

in    he  sen  ice    of   Sub- 


WHERE  THE  SPOTTED  OTTER  PLAY.      136 

lette  and  Captain  Bonneville,  with  a  later  career 
on  the  Yellowstone  as  a  free  trapper,  which  made 
the  advice  and  information  given  by  this  patriarch 
on  trapping  valuable  when  in  good  faith.  On  in- 
quiry as  to  grounds  the  veteran  trapper  advised  a 
trip  to  the  Square  Buttes  and  find  the  place  where 
''the  spotted  otter  play"  and  make  fortune  and  a 
reputation  there  as  he  had  done  once  upon  a  time. 
Indians — especially  Aricarees,  were  also  advising 
as  to  the  necessity  of  a  trip  there  from  which  some 
thing  unusual  must  come. 

With  this  purpose  in  view,  and  after  many  feints 
— with  pony  in  pack  I  passed  over  the  Square 
Buttes  from  the  north  side  on  a  March  day  1875, 
but  on  account  of  the  depth  of  snow  retrograded 
to  Otter  creek  and  went  into  camp.  The  Mis- 
souri was  in  an  ugly  break-up,  the  timber  points 
were,  all  flooded,  and  as  if  to  put  things  in  climax 
to  a  lone  camper,  a  blizzard  suddenly  arose  at 
mid  day  and  the  tent  with  pots  and  kettles  went 
swirling  through  the  snow-laden  air  like  a  dirrigi- 
ble  balloon,  but  had  presence  of  mind  enough  to 
grab  a  few  blankets  and  a  few  pounds  of  corn 
meal  tied  up  in  a  sack,  in  which  were  also  a  tin 
cup  and  a  few  draws  of  tea.  Thus  laden,  I  went 
swirling  down  under  the  northern  base  of  the 
largest  butte  and  was  stranded  in  a  mountain  of 
snow,  but  by  a  miracle  of  good  fortune  found  a 
leaning  dead  tree,  and  another  twirl  of  fortune — 
for  failure  meant  death  by  freezing — after  repeated 
attempts  with  moist  matches  and  almost  the  last 
one  gone,  I  succeeded  in   starting    a    fire    against 


LSI  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

the  tree.  Following  this  the  body  of  the  tree 
took  fire,  and  for  six  nights  and  as  many  days  I  lay 
in  the  warm  ash  bed  following-  the  receding  flame 
until  the  outward  branches  alone  remained.  This 
blizzard  raged  between  the  ist  and  7th  of  April, 
1875,  and  for  duration  and  violence  I  have  always 
believed  that  it  eclipsed  anything  in  the  blizzard  line 
during  near  forty  years  residence  in  the  Dakotas, 
although  this  might  be  qualified  as  viewing  it 
from  an  outside  experience. 

Once  more  the  warm  sun  came  forth  and  once 
more  the  snow  disappeared  and  once  again  the 
writer  took  up  his  line  of  march  for  the  place 
"where  the  spotted  otter  play."  Six  hours  there- 
after I  stood  facing  the  Square  Buttes  creek  in  a 
great  flood  from  melting  snow.  Large  ice  cakes 
and  drift  wood  were  hurrying  down  to  deposit 
their  mite  in  the  great  moving  mass  on  the  Mis- 
souri, some  six  miles  away.  To  some  it  would 
have  been  a  desolate  scene — but  to  my  eyes  it 
was  a  grand  panorama,  none  the  less  beautiful, 
because  of  the  sense  of  loneliness  in  which  it  was 
environed.  A  few  timid  deer  were  feeding  in  a 
coulee  hard  by,  and  a  flock  of  wild  geese  coming 
up  from  the  southland,  after  descrying  a  circle, 
alighted  a  few  hundred  yards  away.  The  pony 
under  his  pack,  walked  about,  nibbling  at  bunches 
of  grass  here  and  there,  while  I  was  surveying 
the  Missouri  bottom  for  a  wreathe  of  smoke  for  I 
half  suspected  that  Vic  Smith  the  hunter  was 
som  about,  having  made  covert    boast  that 


WHERE  THE  SPOTTED  OTTER  PLAY.      138 

he  "would  be  on  spotted  otter's  play  ground  be- 
fore the  trapper  from  Painted  Woods  could  get  a 
move  on" — thereby  forcing  an  alternative  of  camp 
partnership  or  division  of  the  trapping  grounds. 

The  surmise  took  shape  as  a  curl  of  smoke  was 
noted  issuing  from  a  willow  patch  about  two  miles 
down  stream,  and  about  the  same  time  an  alarm 
from  the  geese  turned  my  attention  in  their  direc- 
tion, and  noticed  beyond  them  and  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  swollen  stream,  a  man  gesticulating 
with  his  arms  in  a  somewhat  excited  manner. 
Thinking-  it  was  Smith  or  some  other  hunter  en- 
deavoring  to  attract  my  attention  to  the' geese, 
did  not  heed  him  further  until  he  arrived  directly 
opposite  my  position,  when  he  yelled: 

"Who  are  you?" 

"A  trapper  from  the  Painted  Woods,"  I  quietly 
answered. 

"Are  you " 

"The  same"  I  again  retorted. 

"Oh,  I  guess  I  am  all  right  then,"  he  said  in  a 
lower  voice  as  if  meant  for  himself,  then  again 
yelling  across: 

"Throw  me  over  some  grub,  I  am  very  hungry," 
and  sat  down  on  the  bank  to  await  my  compliance. 

Taking  some  crackers  and  a  small  hunk  of  ba- 
con from  the  commissary  side  of  the  pack,  I  used 
David's  sling  method  in  transporting  it  across  the 
stream,  and  even  that  fell  short,  and  the  stranger 
was  obliged  to  wade  waist  deep  to  rescue  the 
lunch  from  a  covering  of  mud  and  ice.  He  then 
asked  that  I   kindle  a    fire,    which  was  done,    and 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

after  a  hasty  feed,  he  found  a  large  dry  stick  with 
which  h<  plunged  into  the  stream  in  defiance  to 
danger  from  floating  ice,  and  in  a  short  time  there- 
after,  was  dripping  over  a  roaring  Maze  that  had 
i  prepared  for  his  coming. 

He  said  he  had  no  secrets  to  keep,  and  was 
wholly  at  my  mercy.  That  he  was  the  wagon  boss 
whom  General  Custer  had  arrested  in  connection 
with  the  loss  ot  some  forage  in  the  quartermas- 
ter's department  at  Fort  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
which  he  claimed  he  was  unjustly  accused,  even 
though  the  circumstances  of  the  case  were  some- 
what  against  him.  He  was  held  for  the  action  of 
every  man  in  his  train — be  that  man's  reputation 
good  or  bad.  He  had  been  a  prisoner  for  some 
time  in  the  military  guard  house  in  company,  with 
a  young  Sioux  Indian  named  Rain-in-the-Face, 
whom  Captain  Tom  Custer  with  a  squadron  of 
cavalry  had  arrested  and  brought  up  from  Grand 
River  agency  several  months  before  for  the  killing 
of  the  sutler  and  doctor  in  the  military  expedition 
to  the  Yellowstone,  1873. 

The  two  prisoners  broke  jail  at  midnight,  each 
taking  his  own  way  under  a  heavy  fire  from  the 
guards.  The  wagon  boss  did  not  know  the  fate 
of  his  Indian  companion,  but  for  himself  he  was 
followed  to  the  Heart  river  by  the  reserve  guards 
at  which  stream,  though  at  the  height  of  its  spring 
break-up,  he  jumped  astride  of  a  moving  cake  of 
ice,  which,  however,  gave  him  the  slip  when  he 
was  precipitated  in  mid  stream,  and  about  the  same 
time  came  a  last  volley  from   the    guards,  who  in 


WHERE  THE  SPOTTED  OTTER  PLA^.      140 

peering  through  the  darkness  after  this  last  mis- 
hap must  have  concluded  that  he  was  done  for,  as 
they  made  no  attempt  to  follow  him  further. 

But  old  Father  Time  did  not  reach  out  his  long 
scythe  for  the  wagon  b^ss,  and  he  floated  to  the 
opposite  shore,  his  clothes  thoroughly  soaked  and 
dripping,  with  no  chance  for  a  change  or  a  match 
to  light  a  fire.  Luckly  for  him  the  night  was  not 
a  freezing  one;  the  heat  from  his  body  gradually 
warmed  his  clothes,  and  in  this  situation  he  had 
made  his  way  to  Square  Buttes  creek. 

After  some  time  spent  before  the  fire  I  told  the 
wagon  boss  that  hunter  Smith's  camp  was  in 
sight,  judging  from  a  smoke,  and  that  we  had  bet- 
ter look  it  up.  The  surmise  proved  correct,  and 
when  we  reached  the  willows  found  Smith  and 
three  or  four  companions  encamped  there. 

The  wagon  boss  was  known  to  Smith  and  his 
predicament  guessed  at.  The  hunted  man  was 
given  a  good  night's  rest  but  was  advised  for  his 
own  safety  to  get  out  of  the  country  as  soon  as 
possible.  The  next  afternoon  I  made  a  sign-up 
for  otter  along  the  creek,  and  at  farthest  point  out 
discovered  two  horsemen  whose  motions  were 
those  of  Indians,  and  on  my  return  to  camp  noti- 
fied the  party  what  1  had  seen,  and  the  concensus 
of  opinion  in  camp  was,  that  either  hostile  Indians 
or  Custer's  scouts  were  locating  us,  and  Smith 
again  urged  the  wagon  boss  to  move  on,  but  with- 
out success,  his  late  experience  evidently  being  too 
much  for  him — in  other  words, — had  lost  his  grit. 

But  the  climax  would  come.       At    early    dawn 


Ml  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVE 

the  following  morning-,  being  the  first  to  awaken, 
I  arose  to  replenish  the  fire,  when  the  shadows  ol 
a  hundred  horsemen  stood  in  motionless  silhoute 
against  the  steep  bluff  in  our  front.  Every  man 
in  camp  was  on  his  feet  at  the  first  alarm,  and 
the  wagon  boss  drawled  out  pitifully: 

"I  am  gone — here    is  Tom  Custer  and    all  his 
cavalry  comman  .." 

An  optical  survey  brought  confirmation.      Cap 
tain  Custer  and  Interpreter  Girard  stood  in   front 
of  a  hundred  cavalrymen  with  carbines  at  rest. 

"Is  that  the  man"  said  Custer,  pointing  toward 
the  wagon  boss. 

''That  is  the  man,"  replied  Girard. 

It  was  impossible  to  keep  my  eyes  or  thoughts 
at  rest  or  heart  at  ease  during  the  few  minutes 
that  followed,  as  the  wagon  boss  was  lashed  upon 
a  horse  and  the  bugle  sounded,  and  the  order  of 
trot  march  given  to  the  command  by  its  chief. 
Elation  seemed  written  on  every  countenance 
among  the  blue  coated  soldiers  for  the  work  they 
had  successfully  done.  It  was  they  who  had 
captured  the  Indian  Rain-in-the-Face  to  begin 
with,  and  now  they  had  the  man  who  had  undone 
the  lesson  of  chastisement  in  returning  him  as  a 
flame  of  fire  among  his  people  and  a  further 
menace  to  the  peace  of  the  border. 

It  was  the  look  of  hopelessness,  dispair  and 
shame  which  saddened  the  prisoner's  face,  that 
enlisted  my  sympathy  as  they  moved  away  from 
die  foothills   of   the   Square   Buttes.      Within  two 


Bone  Monument  at  Custer's  Last  Stand. 
Battle  oe  Little  Big  Horn. 


WHERE  THE  SPOTTED  OTTER  PLAI        142  , 

months  he  had  discredited  an  honorable  calling, 
brought  reproach  and  a  cloud  on  the  lives  of  his 
young  wife  and  her  two  babes,  and  all  of  these 
things  I  felt,  as  though  reading  his  mind,  were 
casting  him  in  the  abyss  of  despair,  as  he  turned 
to  look  backward  and  across  the  big  river  to  the 
neighboring  town  within  whose  precincts  huddled 
in  their  mortification  the  very  essence  of  his  life. 
His  was  a  verified  dread.  Within  two  months 
from  that  hour  he  was  serving  a  two  years  term 
in  the  penitentiary;  within  six  months  his  wife 
had    secured    a  divorce  and  had  married  another. 

Now  take  a  whirl  with  the  kaleidoscope  and 
and  behold  the  transformation  in  this  life  picture! 

Within  eighteen  months  from  the  morning  that 
the  captive  wagon  boss  was  borne  from  the  spot- 
ted otter's  play  ground,  Captain  Tom  Custer  and 
all  his  command — men  and  horses — were  dead; 
their  unburied  bones  contributing  to  the  first  mon- 
ument at  Little  Big  Horn  in  commemoration  of 
that  field  of  death. 

Of  the  despised  prisoners  at  the  Fort  Lincoln 
guard  house,  the  Indian  arose  a  hero  among  his 
people,  and  it  is  said  in  his  savage  frenzy  he  had 
torn  the  bleeding  heart  from  Captain  Custer's 
lifeless  form  when  the  day  of  Little  Big  Horn's 
carnage  was  over.  And  the  wagon  boss.  Twenty 
years  later  a  letter  was  received  from  him  by  an 
old  friend  dated  at  an  Arizona  mining  camp  in 
which  he  made  some  inquiry  about  his  family.  "Tell 
my  children,"  he  wrote,  "I  have  been  prosperous 
here  and  have  money  and  property  for  us  all." 


BLOODY  KNIFE  AND  CALL. 

TWO  of  the  most  picturesque  and  interesting 
Indian  characters  along  the  Upper  Missouri 
valley  during  the  military  occupation,  was  Bloody 
Knife  a  half  blood  Sioux  and  Aricarree  and  the 
Uncapapa  Sioux  chief  Gall.  The  lives  of  both 
were  of  the  spectacular  order  from  their  first  en- 
try to  a  warrior's  estate  until  their  death — and 
during  all  the  years  of  activity  each  regarded  the 
other  as  his  most  inveterate  and  unforgiving  foe. 
Gall  stood  in  his  moccasins  near  six  feet  tall,  a 
frame  of  bone,  with  the  full  breast  of  a  gladiator 
and  bearing  of  one  born  to  command.  No  sena- 
tor of  old  Rome  ever  draped  his  toga  with  a  more 
becoming  grace  to  the  dignity  of  his  position  in 
the  Forum,  than  did  Gall  in  his  chiefs  robe  at  an 
Indian  council.  General  Custer's  widow  who  had 
followed  her  husband  in  most  of  his  Indian  cam- 
paigns, and  had  seen  many  different  tribal  repre- 
sentatives of  the  red  man  at  his  best,  declares  in  her 
book,  "Boots  and  Saddles"  that  Gall  was  the  finest 
specimen  of  the  physical  Indian  that  she  had  ever 
met  with.  Bloody  Knife,  too  had  a  dramatic  pose 
and  was  more  of  a  real  actor  than  Gall  but  lacked 
the  natural  and  dignified  bearing  of  the  Sioux 
chieftain.  Gall  easily  held  his  position  as  chief, 
and  from  his  own  little  band  of  six  lodges  in 
1866,  his  following  numbered  sixty  lodges  in  1876 


Chief  Gall. 


liKADEH    OF    THE    NORTHERN    SlOUX     AT    THE 

Battle  on  the  Little  Big  Horn. 


BLOODY  KNIFE  AND  GALL.  144 

not  to  mention  his  prominence  as  war  chief  and 
commander  of  the  northern  Sioux  division  at  the 
battle  on  the  Little  Big  Horn,  and  shared  the 
chief  command  with  the  redoubtible  Crazy  Horse, 
the  red  Stonewall  Jackson  of  the  confederated 
Sioux. 

Bloody  Knife  was  no  chief,  neither  did  he  have 
the  gift  of  command.  He  was  an  excellent  guide, 
a  brave  warrior  and  a  true  blue  scout.  No  officer 
of  the  army  with  whom  he  served,  ever  charged 
him  with  disloyalty  whatever  the  provocation,  nor 
in  shirking  any  duty  however  hazardous.  It  was 
this  reputation  that  brought  him  to  General  Cus- 
ter on  that  dashing  officer's  first  advent  in  the 
Dakotas,  and  remained  with  him  to  the  end.  The 
General  admired  the  noted  red  scout  for  his  good 
qualities,  but  put  the  curb  on  his  bad  ones.  One 
of  his  weaknesses,  was  an  inborn  cruelty,  and 
Custer  recited  an  instance  of  this  in  his  expedition 
to  the  Black  Hills,  1874.  In  making  a  detour  to 
behold  a  cave  with  promised  wonders,  they  found 
a  lonely  old  Sioux,  and  took  him  prisoner.  Bloody 
Knife  demanded  his  right  to  kill  and  scalp  his  old 
enemy — as  he  called  him — in  his  own  way.  The 
General  demurred,  and  the  scout  in  angry  mood 
took  the  sulks  and  refused  to  be  comforted.  He 
dropped  to  the  rear  and  rode  alone  the  balance  of 
the  day,  in  dramatic  humility  and  disgust. 

An  anecdote  which  antedates  the  Black  Hills 
incident  many  years,  reveals  Bloody  Knife  with 
his  passions  uncontrolled  and  at  full  play.  This 
was  August  10,  1869,  near  Fort  Buford,  after  the 


KALEIDOSCOriC  LIVES 

killing  of  four  men  on  their  way  to  the  hayfield 
by  a  mixed  band  ofhostiles,  but  principally  Unca- 
papa  Sioux.  In  this  unequal  combat  to  the  death, 
:i  ventursome  Sioux  boy  was  shot  in  the  thigh  but 
lor  some  reason  had  been  left  on  the  north  bank 
of  the  Missouri  by  his  comrades,  as  they  retired 
across  the  old  buffalo  ford  nearly  opposite  the 
place  of  encounter.  The  nearness  of  the  fort  and 
fear  of  pursuit  had  made  their  retirement  a  hurried 
one,  and  the  boy  left  behind  to  shift  for  himself. 
While  watching  his  comrades  pass  over  and  away 
from  the  opposite  side,  he  turned  in  dismay  only 
to  be  confronted  with  sudden  fear.  The  willows 
parted — vengeance  seeking  Bloody  Knife  was 
upon  him — his  right  hand  firmly  gripping  the 
dreaded  scalping  knife.  The  boy  seemed  to  have 
known  him,  and  as  the  knife  blade  went  circling 
around  his  scalp  lock  he  said  despairingly,  as  in- 
terpreted from  his  native  Sioux. 

"Bloody  Knife  have  pity.  I  am  only  a  boy  as 
you  may  see — and  this  was  my  first  trip  to  war." 

"Bloody  Knife  will  take  care  that  you  will  not 
make  a  mistake  again,"  replied  the  merciless  scout 
as  he  tore  off  the  scalp  and  reached  down  and 
clasped  the  boy's  hand,  and  with  his  keen  knife 
blade  circled  the  victim's  wrist,  at  the  same  time 
breaking  down  the  bone  joints. 

"You  will  kill  me,  Bloody  Knife"  again  plead 
the  boy. 

"Bloody  Knife  prepares  his  enemy  for  the  hap- 
py hunting  ground  before  starting  him  on  his  long 
journey,"  said  the  scout,  with  unfeeling    sarcasm, 


BLOODY  KNIFE  AND  GALL.  146 

as  he  reached  for  the  boy's  other  hand  and  treated 
it  in  the  same  manner.  By  this  time,  from  pain  and 
loss  of  blood,  the  Sioux  boy  was  indifferent  to, 
further  mutilation. 

In  the  early  spring  of  1868,  Yellowstone  Kelly, 
then  carrying  the  military  mail  between  Forts 
Stevenson  and  Buford,  claimed  that  he  was  at- 
tacked by  two  Sioux  near  the  mouth  of  upper  or 
Little  Knife  river  and  had  killed  them  both.  While 
the  Indians  had  the  advantage  of  numbers  and 
position,  the  mail  carrier  overeached  them  in  the 
matter  of  "shooting  irons,"  he  having  a  sixteen 
shot  Henry  rifle  while  his  adversaries  had  but  one 
muzzle  loading  fluke  and  a  couple  of  bows  and 
arrows.  After  his  victory  the  mail  carrier  put 
back  to  Fort  Berthold  and  reported  his  adventure, 
whereupon  the  irrepressible  Bloody  Knife  imme- 
diately sallied  out  and  took  up  the  trail  to  the 
place  indicated  by  the  mail  carrier,  found  the  two 
dead  Sioux  as  represented;  tore  off  their  frozen 
scalps,  and  gathered  up  other  trophies  of  the  affray 
and  returned  down  to  the  village  where  the  allied 
warriors  joined  in  high  carnival  and  a  scalp  dance, 
in  which  the  honors  were  evenly  divided  between 
the  man  that  did  the  slaughtering  and  the  man 
who  "counted  his  coo." 

Late  in  the  spring  of  1868,  in  connection  with 
an  Aricaree  known  among  the  traders  as  Red  Legs, 
Bloody  Knife  was  accused  of  the  murder  of  an  old 
trapper  named  LaFranc,  for  his  peltries.  The 
trapper  was  found  by  a  party  of  Gros  Ventres  on 


147  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

a  creek  near  the  moul  I  ->;  Littie  Missouri.  He 
was  lying  dead,  face  downward,  with  a  bullet  hole 
through  the  back  of  his  head.  An  unsprung  trap 
was  lying  by  his  side,  and  was  evidently  a  clear 
case  of  a  trapper  trapped. 

One  afternoon  in  the  summer  of  1873,  while 
at  the  door  of  the  stockade  at  Point  Preparation, 
Bloody  Knife,  heading  a  small  party  of  Aricarees, 
came  dashing  up  to  the  gates,  the  ponies  they 
were  riding  all  covered  with  lather  and  perspira- 
tion dripping  from  their  bodies: 

"You  man  that  talk  Pawnee"  said  the  excited 
and  ruffled  leader  in  the  Aricaree  tongue,  "my 
heart  is  strong.  I  have  fought  a  steamboat  this 
day." 

"I  hope  you  had  better  luck  than  the  Spaniard 
Don  Quixote  when  he  fought  the  windmill,"  I 
ventured  in  reply. 

"Don't  talk  back — my  heart  is  very  bad,"  said 
Bloody  Knife  again  at  the  same  time  cocking  his 
gun,  but  in  an  instant  later  he  was  surrounded  and 
calmed  down  by  his  more  pacific  comrades.  The 
Indians  then  gave  an  explanation  of  their  conduct. 
They  had  just  been  discharged  from  a  six  months 
enlistment  in  the  military  scouting  service  at  Fort 
Lincoln,  and  to  celebrate  the  event  Bloody  Knife 
had,  somehow  or  o:  her,  procured  a  jug  of  whiskey 
with  which  he  freely  imbibed  before  leaving  the 
fort.  In  crossing  the  Missouri  river  ferry  he  got 
in  an  alteration  with  the  boat  crew  in  which  they 
were  joined  by  an  orderly  sargeant  who  attempted 


OLD  FORT  CLARK, 
As  Drawn  by  Catlin  in   1832. 


BLOODY  KNIFE  AND  GALL.  148 

to  shoot  Bloody  Knife  as  principal  disturber,  but 
failed  to  put  him  out  of  action.  Upon  reaching 
shore  with  their  ponies  they  mounted  at  once 
and  headed  homeward,  but  Bloody  Knife's 
dander  was  up  and  he  refused  to  follow.  As  his 
comrades  scampered  away  he  turned  back  and 
fired  several  shots  into  the  steamer's  hull  in  wild 
bravado,  and  in  return  compliment  from  the  boat, 
a  number  of  bullets  whistled  close  about  the  red 
warrior's  ears,  and  the  whole  affair  being  merely 
confirmatory  of  the  oft  quoted  saying  "that  for 
every  man  killed  in  battle  his  weight  in  lead  is 
expended." 

Late  in  the  autumn  of  1875,  the  writer  dropped 
into  the  Aricaree  quarter  of  the  Indian  village  at 
Fort  Berthold  from  the  White  Earth  country 
where  I  had  spent  some  months  on  a  hunting  and 
trapping  expedition.  Among  others  to  greet  my 
arrival  was  Bloody  Knife,  who  said  instanter,  that 
he  had  a  proposition  to  make.  That  I  had  a  hunt- 
ing rig  complete — was  on  a  vacation — and  could 
listen.  He  wanted  to  form  a  hunting  partnership, 
at  once.  A  hunting  party  of  Aricarees  had  just  re- 
turned from  a  trip  to  old  Fort  Clark  loaded  down 
with  deer  and  elk  meat,  and  reported  a  band  of 
forty  elk  in  the  bottom  lands  south'of  Lake  Man- 
dan,  and  not  yet  disturbed. 

Such  a  proposition  was  readily  accepted;  not 
that  the  writer  was  anxious  to  turn  into  an  elk 
slayer,  but  that  the  route  selected  was  but  the 
continuation  of  his  journey  to  the  Painted  Woods 


L49  KALEIDOSCOPIC1  LIVES 

country  where  he  had  expected  to  go  into  winter 
quarters.  There  was  also  another  reason — more 
of  moment — and  of  an  opportunity  long  sought. 
Bloody  Knife  was  a  plain  spoken  linguist  in  both 
Sioux  and  Aricaree;  in  fact  for  clearly  defined 
expression  of  tongue,  and  of  conveying  ideas 
which  could  be  readily  understood  by  an  amateur 
linguist.  I  never  met  his  superior  among  any  In- 
dians of  whatsoever  tribe  or  nation  during  my 
many  years  experience  with  these  people.  And 
in  the  sign  language  he  was  simply  perfect.  For 
some  information  often  sought  and  as  often  baffled 
in  the  seeking — the  opportunity  was  now  within 
reach.  Whatever  his  faults  Bloody  Knife  was  no 
liar  and  if  he  talked  at  all — would  talk  straight. — 
For  this  I  would  go  in  partnership  with  Bloody 
Knife.  He  had  sought  the  trapper's  companionship 
for  his  thorough  equipment  for  winter  service,  so 
after  all,  although  with  reasons  diverse,  converg- 
ing of  interests  started  us  down  the  frozen  bed  of 
the  Missouri  as  two  of  a  company. 

The  second  night  out  we  found  camp  at  the  Red 
Springs  timber  point,  when  after  supper,  and  when 
my  companion  had  his  smoke  over,  I  said  to  him: 
"For  a  number  of  years  the  white  traders  at  Fort 
Berthold  have  been  telling  of  the  troubles  between 
yourself  and  the  Sioux  chief  Gall.  Will  you  tell 
me  the  origin  of  ihat  trouble?" 

"Bloody  Knife  has  a  hated  foe  in  Gall  and  does 
not  want  to  speak  about  him.  Better  talk  of  the 
elk  we  are  to  kill  at  Lake  Mandan,"  said  my  red 
comrade  with  an  uncanny  frown. 


BLOODY  KNIFE  AND  GALL.  150 

After  some  minutes  of  studied  silence  save  the 
sound  from  puffing  at  his  pipe  Bloody  Knife  again 
spoke  out: 

"Who  among  the  traders  was  telling  you  of 
these  things? 

"Girard,  old  Jeff  Smith,  Malnori  and  old  man 
Buchaump,"  I  made  answer. 

"And  Packineau,"  quickly  chimed  in  the  smoker 
with  some  show  of  attention. 

"And  Packineau,"  I  reiterated. 

"Well,  go  on  now  and  tell  what  they  say.  I  can 
listen,"  said  my  companion  in  a  more  communi- 
cative mood. 

"They  say  that  Bloody  Knife's  mother  is  an 
Aricaree  while  his  father  was  an  Uncpapa  Sioux. 
That  he  was  born  and  brought  up  in  a  Sioux  camp 
but  early  learned  to  hate  his  boy  companions  be- 
cause of  affronts  and  by  being  almost  continually 
taunted  about  his  mother  being  of  Aricaree  blood." 

"That  may  all  be  true,"  interrupted  my  compan- 
panion,  "It  was  a  long  time  ago." 

"Then,"  I  continued,  "The  mother  finding  life 
unindurable  for  her  boy  as  well  as  for  herself, 
forsook  husband  and  his  people  and  made  her 
way  back  to  her  girlhood  home." 

"Meantime  Bloody  Knife  grew  up  to  be  about 
twenty  years  old,  when  one  day  he  had  a  longing 
to  visit  the  camp  of  his  father  then  at  the  mouth 
of  Rosebud  river.  He  must  make  the  trip  alone 
and  if  caught  out  from  camp  on  the  prairies  could 
expect  no  mercy  from  a  tribal  enemy.  He  had 
reached  the  Sioux  camp — and  in  good  faith  could 


151  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

claim  protection  and  fellowship.  This  would  have 
been  accorded  him  but  for  a  boyhood  enemy  who 
was  at  the  time  a  member  of  the  soldier  band  and 
of  growing  influence  over  the  braves  of  the  camp. 
That  by  an  order  from  the  head  soldier  and  the 
active  assistance  of  young  Gall  and  others  of  his 
kind — Bloody  Knife  was  stripped  and  beaten  with 
ramrods  and  coo  sticks  until  blood  coursed  in 
streams  down  his  back,  and  was  then  told  to  be- 
gone— otherwise  speedy  death  would  overtake 
the  loiterer. 

"How!  how!"  answered  the  exhausted  smoker, 
putting  away  his  pipe. 

"That  in  the  autumn  of  1862,  two  younger 
brothers  of  Bloody  Knife  were  caught  out  on  a 
hunting  trip  by  a  war  party  of  Sioux  and  both 
killed,  scalped,  quartered  and  left  to  rot  upon  the 
open  plain.  Gall  was  the  reputed  leader  of  ihis 
war  party." 

"How!  how!"  again  ejaculated  my  red  comrade. 

"In  the  early  winter  of  1865,"  I  resumed  "the 
Gall,  then  chief  of  but  four  lodges  of  Uncpapa 
Sioux,  came  into  Fort  Berthold  and  encamped  in 
the  willows  south  of  the  fort.  Their  mission  was 
a  peaceable  one — if  appearances  was  an  indica- 
tion. A  company  of  soldiers  with  its  quota  of 
officers  were  encamped  near  the  fur  company  fort. 
The  commander's  general  instructions  were  to 
defend  and  not  persecute.  To  maintain  peace  with 
all  the  tribes  if  possible.  This  was  the  desire  of 
the  government.  The  Uncpapa  Sioux  were  then 
making  friendly  overtures  to  the  Mandans,    Gros 


BLOODT   KNIFE  AND  GALL.  152 

Ventres  and  Aricarees,  and  desired  an  alliance. 
As  these  confederated  bands  had  all  the  trouble 
they  could  stand  under  with  the  lower  Yankton ey, 
Blackfoot  and  allied  tribes,  they  were  glad  of  any 
diversion  in  their  own  favor." 

"This  was  the  situation  when  Chief  Gall's  family 
of  women  scraped  away  the  debris  at  the  edge  of 
the  red  willow  bar  to  make  clean  a  place  to  put 
their  lodge.   But  around  them  hove  a  spirit  of  evil." 

"Bloody  Knife — restless  being  thathe  is — came 
upon  the  stage  of  action.  He  had  been  watching 
every  move  in  his  surroundings  from  a  corn  scaf- 
fold— and  was  ready.  He  started  for  the  officers 
quarters  at  once  and  thus  addressed  the  ranking 
officer:" 

"Do  you  want  the  bad  Sioux  who  has  been  kill- 
ing these  white  men  found  dead  and  scalped  in 
lonely  places  along  this  river." 

"  'I  do,'  "  replied  the  officer,  no  doubt  having 
in  mind  the  notorious  outlaw  chief,  Long  Dog  and 
his  renegade  band  of  mixed  bloods." 

"  'If  you  do  want  him — and  want  him  bad" 
said  the  (oxy  scout,  "  bring  along  your  soldiers 
— you  will  want  all  of  them.  The  scoundrel  is 
now  d  iwn  in  yon  willows,"  at  the  same  time  rais- 
ing h\6  unblanketed  arm  in  the  direction  of  the 
lower  corn  gardens  south  west  of  the  village." 

''Did  Packineau  tell  you  that?"  again  interrupted 
my  now  thoroughly  interested  companion. 

"Yes;  and  Girard,  and  Malnori,  and  Buchaump 
and  old  Jeff  Smith,"  I  answered. 

"Go  on,"  said  my  hunting  partner  gruffly. 


153  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

The  officer  commanding  immediately  directed 
the  call  to  arms  and  a  lieutenant  with  a  platoon  of 
of  soldiers  with  instructions  to  follow  Bloody  Knife 
as  guide,  find  the  Indian  pointed  out  and  kill 
him  or  any  others  that  may  resist  or  make  trouble. 
The  guide  led  the  officer  and  his  soldiers  to  the 
Sioux  camp;  a  surround  was  made  of  the  Gall's 
lodge  and  as  the  surprised  chief  emerged  from  the 
door  flap,  he  was  shot,  knocked  down  and  pinned 
to  the  earth  by  one  of  the  soldiers  ramming  his 
bayonet  through  the  Gall's  stout  breast.  Blood 
streamed  up  from  the  gaping  bayonet  wound,  his 
mouth  and  nostrels.  The  officer  walking  up  to 
and  bending  over  the  motionless  form  pronounced 
him  "done  for." 

"Not  yet — but  I'll  make  him  dead,"  said  Bloody 
Knife,  who  also  came  quickly  to  survey  the  pros- 
trate form  of  his  fallen  enemy,  and  suiting  action 
to  his  word,  rammed  his  buckshot  loaded  gun  near 
the  Gall's  blood  smeared  face,  and  discharged 
both  barrells  with  a  loud  report." 

But  the  officer  with  a  hand  more  deft  and  a  mind 
more  active  than  the  vengeful  scout,  had  tipped 
the  barrells  aslant  and  the  discharged  gun  tore  a 
hole  in  the  ground  a  few  inches  to  the  left  of  the 
Sioux  chiefs  head." 

"Bloody  Knife  went  off  in  high  dudgeon  at  the 
officer's  interferance  and  endeavored  to  create  a 
wrathful  commotion  in  the  Aricaree  quarter  but 
was  checkmated  by  wiser  heads." 

"Had  that  white  chief  let  Bloody  Knife  alone," 
said  my  partner  in  interruption,  "his  brother  officer 


BLOODY  KNIFE  AND  GALL.  154 

would  not  have  been  dragged  by  the  neck  to  his 
death  back  of  the  Sentinel  Buttes  and  the  eyes  of 
the  black  man  put  out  by  heated  iron  ramrods 
as  was  done  in  Gall's  camp  on  the  headwaters  of 
Heart  river.  But  go  on  with  your  talk.  What 
next?" 

"The  next  is  information  I  would  like  to  know 
from  Bloody  Knife  himself"  I  replied,  "not  even 
Packineau  could  or  would  tell  me  of  this.  How 
did  Gall  arise  as  one  from  the  dead  after  all  of 
those  bayonets  had  been  thrust  through  his  breast 
— after  all  that  loss  of  blood — for  they  say  he 
bled  near  a  gallon  on  the  spot  where  he  fell?' 

"That  was  no  secret  with  me  then  or  is  it  a 
mystery  now,"  said  Bloody  Knife  thoughmlly  in 
Sioux — for  it  was  it  was  in  that  language  we  were 
conversing.  "In  Gall's  camp  was  an  old  medicine 
woman  known  for  her  great  success  in  the  curing 
and  healing  of  gun  shot  wounds.  Into  her  hands 
the  body  of  Gall  was  placed  by  his  favorite  wife, 
and  resusitation  began  on  a  fast  moving  travioux. 
It  was  near  this  point — secluded  in  the  willows — 
that  the  medicine  woman  put  him  safely  with  the 
living.  Now  let  us  go  to  sleep  and  dream  of 
blood, — that  good  fortune  may  attend  us  among 
the  elk  herds  of  Lake  Mandan." 

The  next  morning  we  sledded  down  to  a  point 
of  young  cottonwoods  where  we  found  our  old 
friend  DeWitt  Clinton  and  his  two  Indian  women 
nicely  domiciled  in  a  log  shack,  and  getting  out 
wood  for  the  next  season's  run  of  boats.  Here 
we  loitered  for  a  day,  and  my  comrade,  was    pro- 


155  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

fuse  in  his  meat  promises  to  the  mesdames  when 
he  returned  from  the  hunting  ground  of  Lake 
Mandan. 

After  our  departure  and  while  under  way  I  said: 
"Bloody  Knife  you  made  good  hunting  promises 
to  the  Rabbit,"  referring  to  his  conversation  with 
one  of  the  Indian  women. 

"I  had  to,"  retorted  my  comrade,  "to  have  her 
make  good  luck  for  us.  I  want  to  return  from 
Lake  Mandan  loaded  down  with  meat.  That  old 
woman  is  medicine." 

"In  that  case  she  may  have  read  your  thoughts 
and  thwart  your  plans.  She  may  be  more  than 
medicine — a  witch."  I  said. 

"That  may  be,"  replied  Bloody  Knife  softly,  but 
accompanied  his  words  by  a  nervous  and  uneasy 
look. 

That  same  evening  we  reached  the  head  of  Elm 
Point,  and  expected  to  go  into  quarters  in  the 
abandoned  McCall  shacks  for  the  night  but  were 
surprised  to  find  Carahoof  and  Dan  Knapp — two 
Bismarck  hunters — in  full  possession  of  the  prem- 
ises. We  were  heartily  welcomed,  however, — 
and  piled  our  donnage  in  one  of  the  abandoned 
rooms  and  picketed  the  ponies  on  a  grass    knoll. 

At  this  point  a  high  ridge  faces  Knife  river 
with  a  most  picturesque  view  of  the  surrounding 
country  for  many  miles  on  either  side  of  the  Mis- 
souri. From  the  highest  point  of  the  ridge  here, 
the  place  had  long  been  noted  as  the  rendezvous 
of  the  Indian  eagle  trapper — and  with  them  it  was 
held  as  hallowed  ground.     Every  coulee  or  bluff, 


o 

CO 


o 
cj 

W 

o 

*! 

*! 

PI 


o 

9» 


lw 


BLOODY  KNIFE  AND  GALL.  156 

hereabout,  had  a  legend  or  modern  data  to  tell  of 
some  romantic  escapade  or  tragedy.  On  the  west 
bank  of  the  Missouri,  opposite,  the  Gros  Ventres 
had  lived  in  their  dirt  lodges,  killed  buffalo  and 
planted  and  tended  their  corn  in  the  early  days  of 
the  past  century  and  when  the  dreaded  war  whoop 
would  echo  from  the  bluffs  and  varable  scenes  be 
re-enacted,  in  the  violent  death  or  deaths  to  the 
unwary  or  overconfident.  Less  than  a  mile  above 
this  point  of  bluffs  that  loomed  up  back  of  our 
quarters  of  the  night,  a  British  fort  was  built  and 
a  British  flag  floated  in  the  breeze  many  years  be- 
fore the  American  explorers  Lewis  and  Clark  had 
floated  the  stars  and  stripes  from  their  winter 
quarters  at  Fort  Mandan — located  at  the  extreme 
lower  end  of  this  same  point. 

The  last  tragic  occurrence,  and  one  most  fruitful 
of  conversation  at  McCall's  shacks  on  the  night 
here  mentioned,  was  an  event  of  the  preceding 
autumn.  A  party  of  fifteen  Gros  Ventres  had 
come  down  from  their  village  for  an  elk  hunt 
and  among  the  party  was  a  young  Uncpapa  Sioux 
who  had  been  living  with  the  Gros  Ventres  for 
for  some  time.  The  party  spread  out  for  a  drive 
in  the  upper  end  of  the  point.  When  the  drive 
was  over  the  young  Sioux  did  not  return.  A 
Gros  Ventre  boy  said  he  had  shot  at  something 
red  and  was  too  frightened  or  excited  to  examine 
as  to  the  result  of  his  shot.  Rumor  had  it  that 
the  Sioux  youngster  was  entirely  too  gay  with  the 
Gros  Ventre  girls  to  suit  the  beaus  of  that  tribe, 
and  a  projected  elk  hunt    was  one   of  the    ways 


157  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

taken  to  put  him  to  a  quietus.* 

The  Bismarck  hunters  communicated  to  us  the 
finding  of  a  keg  full  of  something  marked  "port 
wine."  They  had  found  it  on  the  cut  bank  of  a 
frozen  sand  bar  of  the  Missouri  and  far  out  in  mid 
stream,  and  had  evidently  floated  down  from  the 
steamer  that  was  snagged  and  sunk  at  Dauphin's 
Rapids  many  years  before.  The  steamer's  cargo 
was  principally  wines  and  whiskies  and  this  was 
not  the  first  find  credited  to  that  ill-fated  steamer. 
Bloody  Knife  whose  taste  for  firewater  had  not 
waned,  was  willing  to  test  it,  the  hunters  not  having 
the  courage.  It  might  be  poisoned.  The  test  was 
eminently  satisfactory  to  my  hunting  partner. 

Early  the  next  morning  I  had  our  ponies  and 
sleds  ready  before  the  door,  and  reminded  my 
red  partner  that  the  elk  were  awaiting  us  down 
the  river.  Bloody  Knife  looked  up  to  the  two 
hunters  faces — as  though  to  read  them,  then  a 
wistful  look  at  the  keg  under  their  bunk,  when, 
with  an  emphatic  gesture,  spoke  out  loudly: 

"Right  here  I  stay!" 

Thus  it  was  dissolution  and  divergence  came, 
with  the  hunting  partnership,  and  with  it,  a  fur- 
ther lease  of  life  for  the  elk  herds  south  of 
Lake  Mandan. 

The  final  act  to  the  drama  in  which  these    two 


*Fifteen  years  after  the  killing  of  the  Sioux,  his 
bones  were  found  by  Peter  Gradin  who  lived  near 
this  point.  A  Winchester  rifle  lay  by  his  side,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  as  to  his  identity. 


LITTLE  BIG  HORN  RIVER, 

Ford  where  Gen.  Custer  attempted  to  cross  to 

attack  Indian  Village. 


BLOODY  KNIFE  AND  GALL.  158 

actors  entered  as  leading  stars  was  on  the  now 
historic  field  of  Little  Big  Horn,  June  25,  1896. 
Bloody  Knife  entered  the  erena  as  a  mere  scout, 
but  one  whom  his  commander  had  the  utmost 
confidence.  Surviving  scouts  say  that  he  seemed 
of  have  a  premonition  of  disaster  and  did  not 
show  that  spirit  of  reckless  bravado  in  danger's 
face  that  had  formerly  given  him  so  much  notoriety. 
On  that  fateful  morning  when  the  cavalry  com- 
mand separated  into  wings  for  the  compression 
and  destruction  of  the  Sioux  village,  Reynolds, 
Bloody  Knife,  Bob  Tail  Bull  and  Girard — the 
four  most  noted  and  valuable  scouts  in  Terry's 
command  were  assigned  with  Major  Reno.  Al- 
most the  first  to  fall  at  the  commencement  of  the 
action  between  Reno's  detachment  and  the  op- 
posing Sioux  was  Bloody  Knife.  A  ball  went 
crashing  through  his  head  as  he  rode  by  Major 
Reno's  side  and  his  brains  were  scattered  over  the 
uniform  of  that  officer,  which  circumstance  his  de- 
tractors say  threw  Reno  into  panic,  and  not  push- 
ing his  advantage  at  a  critical  time  lost  the  battle 
and  left  Custer  and  his  immediate  command  to 
their  fate. 

In  the  order  of  distribution  with  the  Indian 
army,  the  forces  under  chief  Gall  was  within  call 
near  the  centre  of  the  great  village  and  it  was  at 
this  point  that  General  Custer  directed  his  force 
to  the  ford  of  the  Little  Big  Horn  river  and  made 
an  attempt  to  cross  the  stream  with  the  evident 
intention  of  charging  through  the  village  at  that 
point.      But  Gall  had  his  Sioux  force  so  well    dis- 


lv.»  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

tributcd  that  he  compelled  a  retreat  of  his  foe 
in  a  short  time  thereafter,  but  not  until  several 
cavalrymen  had  fallen  from  their  saddles  into  the 
water,  and  with  the  Ogallalla  chief  Crazy  Horse 
and  the  Cheyenne  Two  Moons,  Gall  as  the  centre 
of  the  trio  must  receive — as  he  does — full  credit 
from  friend  or  foe  for  his  active  and  commanding 
leadership  from  the  firing  of  the  first  to  the 
last  gun  in  that  desperate  race  conflict  among  the 
ravines,  brush  and  bluffs  of  the  Little    Big  Horn. 

The  wild  orgies  of  the  savage  victors  the  night 
following  the  annihilation  of  Custer  and  his  men 
was  of  such  a  weird  and  terror  inspiring  nature 
that  it  remains  among  the  incidents  ever  present 
in  the  memory  of  the  surviving  command  under 
Reno  and  Benteen  entrenched  on  the  hill  nearby, 
and  much  more  so  to  Lieutenent  DeRudio,  Inter- 
preter Girard  and  the  two  Jackson  boys,  cut  off, 
and  surrounded  as  they  were,  and  as  one  of  them 
expresses  it,  "playing  beaver"  among  the  drift 
piles  of  the  Little  Big  Horn  stream.  Dante's  In- 
ferno was  a  mild  representation  in  comparison  to 
the  fanatical  ravings  of  the  exhultant  Cheyenne 
victors  that  was  being  enacted  within  two  hundred 
yards  of  their  desperate  place  of  hiding. 

Chief  Gall — stoic  that  he  was — had  remained 
impassive  to  the  scenes  about  him  after  the  day's 
work  of  blood  was  over — and  he  might  have  con- 
tinued  so  throughout  the  night  had  not  the  severed 
head  of  Bloody  Knife  been  brought  before  him. 
A  broad  smile  crossed  over  his  face  as  he  spoke 
out  joyously  as  interpreted  from  his  Sioux: 

''Now  that  my  vilest  enemy  is  dead  I  can  join 
you  in  the  dance." 


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A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER. 

OTHER  than  of  a  legendary  character  among 
the  two  peoples  which  is  much  at  variance 
and  without  data,  the  cause  of  or  stated  time  as 
to  the  beginning  of  hostilities  between  the  Sioux 
and  the  Ancaree  branch  of  the  Pawnee  nation  is 
unknown  to  the  historian,  but  probably  had  its 
commencement  with  the  northern  march  of  the 
Pawnees  from  the  plains  of  southern  Kansas  and 
northern  Texas  which  must  have  taken  place  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  first  authentic  records  we  have  of  the  Ar- 
icarees  proper,  date  from  the  Lewis  and  Clark 
exploring  expedition  up  the  Missouri  river,  1804, 
Some  account  was  made  as  to  their  earlier  history 
by  these  explorers  and  of  the  situation  in  which 
they  found  them.  They  made  note  of  the  refusal 
of  the  Aricarees  to  accept  whiskey  from  their 
hands  and  of  their  words  of  rebuke  to  the  officers 
in  proffering  them  a  substance  that  would  take 
away  their  wits.  The  explorers  represented  the 
Aricarees  at  this  time  as  serving:  a  kind  of  vassel- 
age  under  the  Sioux  owing  to  an  open  war  with 
northern  tribes,  and  of  having  to  depend  on  the 
good  offices  of  the  Sioux  for  their  supply  of  guns 
powder  and  balls  through  their  intermediary  with 
the  American  fur  company  traders  located  in  the 
heart  of  the  Sioux  country. 


161  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

In  general  characteristics  the  Aricarees  were 
regarded  by  the  early  fur  traders  and  voyagers 
akin  to  the  Ismaelites  of  old,  and  something  of 
the  order  of  the  fierce  Stataans,  that  at  one  time 
inhabited  the  branches  along  the  headwaters  of  the 
Platte  river,  before  their  extermination  by  the 
neighboring  tribes. 

When  Lewis  and  Clark  visited  the  Aricarees, 
they  were  in  two  large  villages  located  on  the 
north  side  of  Grand  river  where  they  remained 
until  after  the  troubles  with  the  fur  traders  which 
culminated  in  the  military  expedition  under  Col. 
Leavenworth  to  these  Indian  towns  during  the 
summer  of  1823.  At  this  time  the  Aricaree  war- 
riors were  reputed  to  muster  about  six  hundred 
warriors  while  the  opposing  force  of  soldiers, 
frontiersmen  and  Sioux  numbered  eleven  hundred 
fighters — all  told.  The  allied  hosts  appeared  be- 
fore the  lower  village  on  the  9th  of  August  and 
the  overconfident  Sioux  made  a  rush  for  the  de- 
fenders of  the  first  town,  and  although  inflicting  a 
much  greater  loss  on  the  besieged  than  they  them- 
selves suffered,  yet  the  Aricarees  at  nightfall  were 
left  masters  of  the  situation. 

On  the  morning  of  the  10th,  Col.  Leavenworth 
brought  up  his  artillery  and  began  a  bombard- 
ment of  the  hapless  town.  The  first  shot  from 
the  big  guns  killed  the  Aricaree  chief  Gray  Eyes, 
an  Indian  of  great  resolution  and  rare  gift  of  com- 
mand. His  death  threw  the  besieged  in  a  panic 
that  would  have  been  fatal,  had  the  Sioux  sup- 
ported the  soldiers  at  that  critical  time  in    a  gen- 


SON-OF-THE-STAR, 
Aricaree  Chief. 


A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER.  162 

eral  assault  on  the  frail  defensive  works  of  their 
enemies.  But  the  impatient  Sioux  were  not  in  a 
pleasant  mood  from  the  tardy  action  of  their  allies 
the  day  previous,  so  instead  of  helping  the  white 
soldiers  with  their  bloody  work  contented  them- 
selves with  pillaging  the  Aricaree  cornfields. 

About  the  time  of  these  happenings  a  child  was 
born  in  the  Aricaree  camp  that  was  destined  to 
be  the  Moses  of  the  tribe  in  its  equally  perilious 
days  and  years  that  would  come  after.  This  child 
was  brought  forth  by  the  wife  of  Star  Robe  a  war- 
rior of  much  reputation.  The  child  became  known 
as  Son-of-the-Stars  and  in  his  own  good  time  be- 
came chief  councillor  and  head  soldier  to  his  tribe. 

One  of  the  Yanktoney  Sioux  sub-chiefs  who 
had  distinguished  himself  in  this  fight  before  the 
Aricaree  towns,  returned  home  to  find  that  he  too 
had  a  son  born  to  him  about  this  time.  This  child 
also  grew  up  to  man's  estate,  and  passed  through 
without  flinching,  that  terrible  ordeal  of  the  mystic 
sun  dance  through  which  he  must  pass  before  he 
could  hope  to  take  his  place  among  the  warriors 
of  his  tribe.  He  early  earned  a  proud  name  by 
his  activity  in  the  chase,  his  ability  in  the  council 
house  and  prowess  in  war.  He  was  called  Matto 
Nompa  or  the  Two  Bears.  The  chiefs  animosity 
was  usually  directed  against  the  Aricarees  but  he 
found  a  foeman  chief  not  to  be  despised  in  the 
person  of  the  Aricaree  chieftain  who  like  himself 
was  foremost  to  brook  an  insult  or  fight  a  battle. 

While  the  Aricarees  were  forced  to  give  up 
their  homes  on  the  Grand  or  Rees  Own  river,  yet 


163  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES. 

theirs  were  of  spirits  unsubdued — be  the  calamity 
ever  so  crushing  or  the  hope  of  better  days  a 
maddening  dream.  They  were  forced  to  bury 
the  tomahawk  with  the  Mandans  and  Gros  Ven- 
tres and  enter  into  an  alliance  with  them  for  self 
preservation  from  the  encroaching  and  all  power- 
ful Sioux.  The  Aricarees  suffered  with  their  allies 
from  the  small  pox  epidemic  of  1837,  and  its  re- 
curring visitation  eleven  years  later,  but  were 
never  so  decimated  in  number  but  what  they  could 
meet  every  attack  from  their  enemies  by  a  counter 
move  of  the  same  kind. 

While  the  allied  tribes  had  first  settled  near 
each  other  as  neighbors,  about  the  year  1863  the 
three  peoples  made  convergence  at  the  Gros  Ven- 
tre camp  afterwards  more  particularly  known  as 
Fort  Berthpld.  While  the  village  or  town  as  a 
whole  was  in  common,,  each  tribe  had  its  distinctive 
quarter,  In  their  war  raids  against  the  common 
enemy  each  tribe  conducted  its  own  rule  of  conduct 
especially  in  the  down  river  raids  by  bu.il  boats. 
The  Aricaree  chief  had  early  made  himself  a  spe- 
cial terror  to  the  Yanktoney  under  Two  Bear's 
leadership  as  well  as  the  non  descript  Two  Kettle 
band  located  still  further  down  the  Missouri. 

In  the  summer  of  1 868,  Son-of-the  Star  made 
ready  for  a  long  promised,  trip  to  his  relatives— 
the  Wolf  Pawnees  of  Nebraska.  These  Pawnees 
were  then  residing  on.  the  Loup  Fork  of  Platte 
river.  He  took  passage  on  a  steamer  returning 
to  St.  Louis  from  a  season  trip  to  Fort  Benton  the 
navigation,  terminus,  0/  the  Upper,  MissojjyrL  la  his 


Fort  Benton  in  1870. 


A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER.  164 

passage  through  the  Sioux  agencies  he  was  com- 
pelled to  keep  in  his  cabin  and  be  content  with 
peeking,  unobserved  through  the  windows,  to 
note  the  smiles  and  frowns  of  his  enemies  as  they 
gathered — all  unconscious  of  his  presence — at 
the  agency  landings.  This  was  particularly  his 
situation  at  Grand  River  agency  almost  at  the 
very  spot,  where  forty-five  years  before,  his  own 
people  had  demanded  from  Ensign  Prior  the  per- 
son of  the  Mandan  chief,  Big  White,  then  on  his 
return  from  Washington.  The  Government  had 
pledged  the  Mandan's  safe  return  to  his  tribe,  to 
which  task  the  ensign  accompanied  by  an  escort 
of  soldiers  had  been  been  detailed  to  accomplish. 
Yet  notwithstanding  the  fact  of  their  reinforce- 
ment by  General  Ashly  and  a  considerable  body  of 
trappers  and  frontiersmen,  the  refusal  to  deliver 
over  their  hostage  on  demand,  was  a  signal  for 
an  assault  by  the  Arricarees,  and  who  succeeded 
in  driving  the  boatmen  and  their  vessels  back  and 
down  the  river  to  their  starting  point. 

With  Son-of-the-Star,  while  the  case  was  some- 
what analogous  the  situation  varied.  He  could 
see  and  not  be  seen  by  his  enemies  and  while  the 
knowledge  of  his  presence  on  the  boat  may  have 
led  to  commotion  if  not  to  a  hostile  demonstration 
on  the  part  of  the  Sioux,  but  the  boat's  captain 
pilot  and  crew  were  in  position  to  ''move  on"  with 
but  little  danger  of  bodily  harm  to  their  charge. 

At  the  new  agency  site  at  Whetstone  creek  for 
the  upper  Brule  Sioux,  the  Aricaree  chief  came 
upon    the  forward  deck    togged  out  in    his    robes 


168  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

as  becomes  an  important  chief.  He  had  passed 
in  safety  the  gauntlet  of  personal  enemies  and 
had  only  the  tribal  ones  to  fear.  The  agency  was 
being  selected  with  a  view  of  bringing  the  Platte 
river  Sioux  over  to  become  permanent  residents 
of  the  Missouri  river  country,  and  but  few  of 
them  had  as  yet  put  in  their  appearance  there 
when  the  steamer  bearing  the  Aricaree  chief  was 
passing  down  stream.  But  on  the  bank  facing  the 
Aricaree  stood  a  tall  manly  form — more  haughty 
than  he — and  effected  the  same  stoical  indiffer- 
ence to  the  others  presence.  This  man  on  the 
bank  was  the  noted  Indian  orator,  Spotted  Tail, 
chief  of  the  Brule  Sioux.  His  wife  and  daughter 
ter  stood  by  his  side  and  looked  out  on  the  boat 
and  its  crew  with  same  supreme  indifference  as  did 
the  head  of  the  house,  and  formost  representative 
of  the  Sioux  nation.  Spotted  Tail  was  an  ideal 
leader  and  a  strong,  great  brained  one.  But  his 
after  fate  followed  along  the  lines  from  King 
Philip  of  Pokoket,  Logan,  and  Pontiac  of  other 
days  to  Crazy  Horse  and  Sitting  Bull  of  recent  date 
— namely,  jealousy  or  fear,  followed  by  treachery 
assassination  and  death.  Spotted  Tail  was  slain 
from  ambush  by  a  jealous  sub-chief  of  his  own 
band.  This  tragic  event  happened  about  three 
years  after  the  scene  above  described. 

Before  starting  on  his  long  journey  through  his 
enemies  to  the  Pawnees  the  Aricaree  chief  had 
thoughtfully  named  as  his  representative  and  pos- 
sible successor  his  favorite  son — Swift  Runner — 
an  ambitious  young  man  anxious  to  follow  in    the 


Spotted  Tail, 

Oneofthe  most  Renouned  of  the  Sioux  Chieftians, 
With  Wife  and  Daughter. 


A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER.  166 

footsteps  of  his  father  who  was  almost  worshiped 
by  his  tribe.  The  young  man  had  as  yet  seen  but 
little  practical  service  in  the  field  of  war  and  this 
fact  spurred  him  on  to  quickly  attempt  something 
as  a  leader  that  would  bring  credit  to  himself  and 
wholesome  respect  from  the  enemies  of  his  peo- 
ple. Dispite  the  attempts  of  the  more  peaceably 
disposed  in  the  tribes  to  make  formal  peace,  the 
hotheads  and  malcontents  had  their  way  and  the 
strife  continued.  Son-of-the-Star  had  hardly  got 
a  good  start  upon  his  journey  to  the  Pawnees  be- 
for  a  war  party  of  the  Two  Kettle  band  from  the 
Crow  Creek  agency  appeared  in  the  bad  lands 
east  of  Fort  Berthold,  and  for  want  of  a  more 
substantial  catch  counted  their  ucoos"  on  a  party 
of  agency  haymakers.  During  the  cold  winter  of 
1868-9  the  terror  inspired  by  lurking  bands  of 
hostile  Sioux  was  so  great  that  gaunt  famine 
stalked  in  almost  every  lodge  among  the  allied 
bands  at  Fort  Berthold.  And  at  the  opening  of 
spring  the  food  situation  had  not  improved  much. 
Village  hunters  became  the  hunted  and  both  the 
ponies  and  the  game  they  packed  became  the 
property  of  the  persevering  and  crafty  Sioux. 

What  must  be  done?  That  was  the  question 
asked  among  the  wise  heads  every  night  at  the 
counsel  house.  The  venerable  White  Shields 
set  in  his  place  wrapped  in  a  pictured  robe  that 
told  of  deeds  that  had  brought  him  both  honor 
and  fame.  But  he  was  a  broken  reed  now  with 
the  aches  and  pains  that  follow  the  hardships  of 
near  seventy  years  in  the  Upper  Missouri  country. 


L67  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

Others  must  come  forward  now.  He  was  done. 
This  was  Swift  Runners  opportunity  and  he  em- 
braced it.     He  would  lead.     Who  would    follow? 

He  would  strike  his  enemies  and  strike  them 
hard.  Better  to  die  at  war  than  sit  looking  in  an 
empty  soup  kittle.  Who  would  go  with  him? — 
The  ice  was  out  of  the  river  and  the  snow  had 
melted  from  the  hills.  It  was  time  to  go.  Such 
was  the  harangue  Swift  Runner  gave.  To  his 
appeal  twenty  young  and  courageous  men  gave 
answer.  They  would  follow  the  bold  youth  whom 
their  tried  leader  had  chosen  to  carry  the  pipe. 

About  the  middle  of  April  1869 — at  the  hour 
of  midnight — seven  well  manned  bull  boats  floated 
out  from  under  the  shadows  of  the  Indian  village 
at  Fort  Berthold  and  drifted  down  with  the  swift 
current  of  the  channel.  The  venerable  Medicine 
Lance  the  high  priest  of  the  Aricarees  sat  on  the 
bank  and  smoked  his  pipe  alone  in  the  darkness 
long  after  the  muffled  sound  of  the  voyagers  had 
passed  away.  The  flower  of  the  Aricaree  youths 
were  in  those  boats  and  he  made  offering  to  the 
spirits  of  the  rolling  deep  and  asked  them  to  be 
kind  to  those  that  he  had  just  consigned  to  their 
charge. 

In  the  dark  days  of  the  allied  tribes  at  Fort 
Berthold  there  was  a  beacon  of  light  and  hope  to 
which  the  eyes  of  these  hunted  beings  were  ever 
turning.  This  was  the  good  offices  of  Medicine 
Bear,  chief  of  the  Upper  Yanktoney.  He  was 
wise   and  just,   bold  and  true.     His  mother  as  a 


A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER.  168 

child  was  one  of  the  few  that  were  saved  from 
cruel  death  in  the  destruction  of  the  upper  Man- 
dan  village  on  Apple  creek  by  the  confederated 
bands  of  northern  Sioux  which  occurred  sometime 
after  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
Mandans  of  this  village  were  loth  to  leave  their 
home  though  they  were  importuned  to  do  so  by 
their  more  alert  and  observing  brethren  who  had 
fled  to  the  banks  of  the  Missouri  some  years  be- 
fore that  they  might  be  better  able  to  cope  with  a 
foe  so  numercially  strong  as  the  roving  Sioux  of 
the  plains.  The  heedless  and  tardy  remained  in 
their  old  homes  until  the  Sioux  needed  scalps  for 
the  dance  when  the  heads  of  Mandans  would  be 
obtained  from  the  Apple  creek  village  for  the  oc- 
casion. 

Medicine  Bear  was  more  ot  an  ideal  jurist  than 
the  average  composition  of  which  a  chief  was 
made.  He  arose  as  the  leader  of  his  tribe  more 
from  his  wisdom  in  diplomacy  than  his  courage  or 
skill  in  the  arts  of  cruel  war.  That  his  young 
men  would  steal  out  from  his  camp  by  twos,  fours, 
sixes  or  more,  to  make  predatory  foray  on  some 
neighboring  tribe  or  wood  camp  was  what  might 
be  expected  from  the  laxity  or  loose  form  of  gov- 
ernmental control  of  a  chief  with  the  mild  man- 
nered ways  of  Medicine  Bear.  As  a  tribe  Med- 
icine Bear's  camp  was  at  peace  with  the  world,  but 
as  individuals — save  the  chief  alone — they  were  at 
war  with  almost  every  tribe  or  clan  on  the  north 
ern  buffalo  range. 

In  contra  to  his  bringing  up  and  environments, 


169  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

Medicine  Bear  was  at  heart  a  Mandan.  "Blood  will 
tell"  saith  the  proverb,  and  it  so  proved  in  Medi- 
cine Bear's  case.  Of  Mandan  blood  he  loved 
that  people  even  though  chief  of  an  alien  tribe. 
Every  year  with  a  chosen  band  he  left  his  main 
camp  on  the  Popular  river  for  a  friendly  visit  with 
the  Mandans,  Gros  Ventres  and  Aricarees  of  Ft. 
Berthold.  He  would  bring  them  buffalo  meat  in 
abundance  and  would  return  home  with  his  po- 
nies well  laden  with  dried  squashes  and  corn.  His 
welcome  home  would  be  hearty  albeat  he  carried 
no  trophy  poles  with  fresh,  bleeding  scalps  hang- 
ing therefrom. 

Through  the  avenue  we  here  have  shown, 
parties  of  Sioux  announcing  their  arrival  from 
Medicine  Bear's  camp  was  sure  of  a  generous 
welcome  from  the  Mandans  and  their  allies.  The 
stay  of  the  visitors  might  run  its  length  into  days, 
weeks  and  even  months,  yet  the  burden  of  hos- 
pitality never  grew  too  heavy  for  the  entertainers. 

Thus  was  the  situation  when  a  party  of  eight 
Sioux  warriors  with  two  women  entered  the  win- 
ter quarters  of  the  Aricarees  from  the  north  early 
in  April  1869.  They  had  come  down  from  Med- 
icine Bear's  camp  on  the  Poplar — and  had  left  the 
old  man  well.  Two  or  three  of  the  Sioux  faces 
were  familiar  to  the  Aricarees  but  most  of  the 
new  guests  seemed  as  strangers.  But  placed  on 
their  tenure  of  hospitality  they  would  make  no 
especial  enquiry.  They  had  come  from  a  friend's 
camp  and  that  was  enough.  Thus  philosophized 
the  Aricaree  entertainers. 


A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER.  170 

The  personality  in  one  of  the  Sioux  visitors  was 
noticeable.  This  one  was  the  youngest  of  the 
two  women.  She  was  vivacious  and  comely — 
with  restless  and  inquiring  ways.  She  matched  in 
age  Cleopatria,  the  Egyptian  queen,  when  that 
brown  beauty  beguiled  the  heart  of  Mark  Antony 
in  their  moonlit  tete-a-tetes  on  the  Nile.  But  while 
the  Egyptian  coquette  cast  her  spell  on  but  one  at 
a  time,  this  native  hypnotist  from  Medicine  Bear's 
camp  had  seemingly  bewiched  the  Aricaree  tribe 
as  a  whole.  When  the  band  moved  down  from 
winter  quarters  to  the  village  proper,  the  visitors 
followed,  and  the  actions  of  this  Sioux  woman  was 
marked  in  many  ways.  She  was  ever  visiting 
from  one  lodge  to  the  other  and  from  tribe  to 
tribe,  loquacious  in  speech  and  with  prying  eyes. 
She  durst  not  enter  the  medicine  lodge  but  could 
see  who  did  enter  there.  On  the  night  of  the 
departure  of  the  Aricaree  war  party,  the  long  ab- 
sence of  the  Medicine  Lance  who  had  went  to 
see  them  safely  started,  not  having  returned  to  his 
home  as  early  as  was  expected,  his  two  brothers 
Sharp  Horn  and  Painted  Man  were  notified  and, 
who,  being  high  up  in  medicine  lodge  council, 
had  knowledge  of  the  point  of  bull  boat  debark- 
ation. The  place  was  in  front  of  where  the  old 
saw  mill  had  stood  on  the  bottom  and  near  by  a 
pile  of  logs.  About  two  months  before,  among 
these  very  logs  a  war  party  of  Sioux  had  hidden 
themselves  as  support  of  a  small  band  of  assas- 
sins sent  up  through  the  village  under  cover  of 
darkness  to  hunt  out  and  steathily  slay  their    vie- 


171  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

tuns.  But  on  the  occasion  referred  to,  through  the 
blunder  of  a  premature  shot  by  a  Sioux,  but  one 
Aricaree  scalp  was  secured  by  this  well  planned 
scheme    of  midnight  assasinalion. 

While  in  quest  of  their  brother,  Sharp  Horn 
and  Painted  Man  passed  the  log  pile  with  their 
memories  brought  to  mind  of  the  Sioux  war  party 
in  hiding,  when  to  their  mystification  some  one 
arose  from  the  opposite  side  of  the  pile  and  glided 
away  in  the  gloom.  They  seemed  sure  the  object 
was  a  woman  and  one  very  light  of  tread.  At 
the  water's  edge  Medicine  Lance  was  found  sit- 
ting in  revere  smoking  away  at  his  pipe  in  the 
darkness.  He  was  accosted  and  all  three  went 
up  the  hill  to  the  Aricaree  quarter,  when,  with 
a  mutual  "good  night"  each  took  seperate  ways 
for  his  own  lodge. 

On  entering  his  domicile,  Painted  Man  was 
treated  to  a  surprise.  The  Sioux  woman  afore 
mentioned  stood  at  his  door.  It  was  in  his  house 
she  had  been  quartered  since  coming  down  from 
the  winter  village,  and  seemed  to  be  without  wifely 
fealty  to  any  one  in  particular — hence  her  where- 
abouts was  not  made  note  of  and  her  absence  un- 
questioned. When  the  light  fell  full  in  her  face 
there  was  no  confusion  or  betrayal  by  emotion — 
though  her  moccasins  and  leggins  gave  evidence 
from  their  moppled  and  bedraggled  condition, 
of  her  having  been  beyond  the  village  environ- 
ments. She  went  to  the  crib  assigned  as  her 
sleeping  apartment  but  was  up  and  about  in  time 
to    hear    the    village    crier  make  his  morning  call 


A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER.  172 

from  the  house  top  of  the  medicine  lodge.  It  did 
not  occur  to  the  Aricarrees  to  make  quiet  roll  call 
of  their  Sioux  visitors  after  the  departure  of  the 
war  party  under  Swift  Runner.  Had  they  cone 
so  there  would  have  had  one  marked  "absent 
and  unaccounted  for."  Also  on  the  departure  of 
the  guests  which  came  to  pass  three  days  later, 
the  party  headed  down  stream  and  not  up  river 
as  was  to  have  been  expected.  It  was  plain  to 
all  who  would  see  that  it  was  the  camp  of  Two 
Bears  and  his  lower  Yanktoneys  and  not  that  of 
Medicine  Bear,  of  Poplar,    they  would  seek. 

The  camp  of  the  Sioux  chief  Two  Bears  was 
frequently  on  the  move  much  of  the  early  spring 
and  summer  of  1869.  During  the  major  part  of 
April  they  shifted  camp  along  the  river  bends  be- 
tween the  valley  of  the  Hermorphidite  on  the 
south  and  Beaver  creek  on  the  north.  Two  Bears 
had  earned  a  reputation  for  success  in  warfare — 
but  he  was  getting  old  and  although  his  wise  and 
safe  counsels  would  be  consulted  as  of  yore  yet 
younger  men  must  lead  in  the  hardships  and  trials 
of  active  war.  Who  would  be  the  partizan  of  his 
band  and  carry  the  pipe  on  the  war  trail? 

The  answer  came  readily.  His  eldest  son  was 
ambitious  to  lead.  The  young  man  had  followed 
his  father  through  every  danger  since  he  was  big 
enough  to  carry  a  bow  or  a  gun  or  old  enough 
to  ride  ahorse.  By  close  companionship  he  knew 
his  father's  method  of  war,  and  had  profited  by 
his  wisdom  in  the  council  lodc/e.     The  sub    chiefs 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

waived  all  right  of  precedence  and  would    cheer- 
fully   lend  such  aid  to  the  young  leader  when  the 

need  for  help  would  present  itself. 

The  call  tor  aid  came  quick  enough.  A  runner 
bearing  word  from  their  enemies,  reigned  up  his 
tired  out  pony  before  the  lodge  of  Two  Bears 
and  told  of  a  decending  war  party  of  Aricarees 
in  bull  boats  whose  purpose  was  to  strike  the 
Yanktoney  camp.  All  were  in  excitement  and 
tribulation  now  that  the  enemy  was  actually  on 
the  water  and  not  far  from  above  their  camp  which 
at  the  time  numbered  thirty-seven  teepes.  Forty 
mounted  warriors  were  started  off  at  once  under 
young  Two  Bears  with  instructions  from  the  old 
chief  to  scan  the  river  and  timber  points  carefully 
until  the  Aricarees  were  met  with  and  then  to 
destroy  them  if  possible — or  at  any  cost  to  them- 
selves:— kill  ail  they  could. 

Runners  were  started  across  to  Fort  Rice  with 
with  instructions  to  the  Sioux  scouts  located  there 
to  scan  the  river  carefully  at  that  point  and  report 
to  young  Two  Bears  at  once  when  the  bull  boats 
were  sighted.  The  Sioux  moved  slowly  up  the 
east  bank  of  the  river  until  near  the  mouth  of 
Apple  creek  when  two  or  three  bull  boats  were 
found  afloat  in  the  water  but  upon  inspection  were 
without  occupants.  A  (exv  miles  further  along  a 
cache  of  these  boats  was  found  in  a  line  of  wil- 
lows. There  was  here  presented  an  enigma  for 
the  Sioux  to  solve.  Had  the  Aricarees  abandoned 
for  a  strike  by  land  or  were  they  in  full  retreat? 
The    floating    bull    boats    made  the  latter  theory 


OKOOS-TEKICKS  A\D  F1MKXDS, 

Four  of  the  Bravest  of  the  Ariearee  Warriors  in  their 
Wars  Against  the  Sioux  from  1864  to  1876. 


A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER.  174 

seem  the  most  probable.  The  sight  of  the  boats 
even  as  "empties"  would  give  warning  to  the  en- 
emy, and  who  when  aroused  could  fill  every  tim- 
ber point  with  a  war  party  on  short  notice — for 
when  common  danger  threatened,  all  the  Sioux 
bands  between  Fort  Rice  and  the  Cheyenne  river 
would  stand  as  one.  And  a  bull  boat  adrift  be- 
tween the  points  named  was  a  signal  oi  danger 
to  all  of  Sioux  blood,  be  they  man,  women  or  child. 

The  visiting  party  from  Medicine  Bear's  camp 
reached  Fort  Stevenson  on  the  evening  of  the 
same  day  that  they  had  ridden  away  from  the 
Aricaree  quarter  of  the  allied  village  at  Fort 
Berthold.  They  made  camp  near  the  scouts  new 
building  west  of  the  garrison  and  were  treated  as 
guests  by  chief  Big  John  and  his  red  soldiers  in 
their  regulation  blue.  Of  the  two  Sioux  women 
with  the  visiting  party,  more  interest  was  shown 
to  the  older  of  the  two — reversing  their  reception 
in  the  Aricaree  camp.  This  came  about  through 
a  remark  from  Red  Dog — a  half  cast  Sioux  and 
Aricaree  scout — and  one  who  had  seen  much  and 
not  given  to  idle  talk.  He  had  asked  some  of 
his  fellow  scouts  to  note  some  peculiar  painting 
on  that  woman's  face  and  mark  her  silent  cogita- 
tion. She  was  as  repellent  to  attention  as  her  com- 
panion had  courted  it,  and  kept  her  face  hooded 
with  her  blanket  from  the  eyes  of  the  inquisitive 
or  over  curious.  Intimates  she  had  none,  but  had 
now  and  then  a  few  words  aside  with  her  joyous 
and  mesmeric  companion.     There  was  also  a  very 


175  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

noticeable  contrast  in  the  dress  oi  the  two  women. 
While  the  younger  was  attired  in  blue  cheviot 
bodice  with  red  leggings  and  a  three  point  scarlet 
blanket  hung  "squaw  fashion"  over  her  shapely 
form.  Her  small  feet  were  encased  in  mocassins 
fancifully  decorated  in  colored  bead  work.  On  the 
other  hand  the  senior  matron  was  plainly  attired 
in  an  old  fashioned  skin  dress  of  the  Indians'  more 
primitive  days.  Her  only  attempt  at  dress  orna- 
mentation was  a  wide  body  belt  studded  with 
brass  headed  tacks  and  a  breast  plate  of  elk 
molars.  Plain  and  unostentatious  as  washer  per- 
sonal appearance,  Red  Dog's  remark  that  she  was 
''medicine"  drew  attention  to  her  every  move- 
ment by  her  entertainers  and  their  friends  until 
after  the  entire  party  of  visiting  Sioux  had  passed 
Garrison  creek,  beyond  the  fort,  in  the  early 
morning  following. 

In  the  comparatively  quiet  and  peaceful  days 
to  the  antelope  that  ranged  the  broken  bluffs  be- 
tween Turtle  and  Buffalo  Paunch  creeks,  which 
covered  the  two  decades  from  i860  to  18S0,  the 
particular  play  ground  and  watering  place  for 
these  beautiful  animals  was  in  the  immediate  vi- 
cinity of  what  is  known  in  these  more  modern 
days  as  Casselmann's  landing.  Its  immediate  lo- 
cation is  about  one  mile  below  where  the  Buffalo 
Paunch  makes  its  small  contribution  to  the  waters 
of  the  Missouri.  The  river  at  this  point  makes 
an  angle  and  laves  its  waters  against  a  low  line 
of  bluffs  usually  called  the  "second  bench"  lands, 


A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER.  176 

and  forms,  by  its  hard,  rocky  soil  a  strong  barrier 
to  the  caprices  of  the  ever  changing  banks  of  the 
river  in  its  windings  through  the  bottom  or  made 
lands  where  the  forests  of  willows,  cottonwoods 
and  kindred  vegitation  find  healthy  sustainance 
and  vigorous  life. 

Antelope,  besides  being  fleet  of  foot,  have  good 
ear  drums  and  eyes  quick  at  sight  and  with  a 
range  equal  to  the  human  optic  as  most  hunters 
who  have  knowledge  of  these  animals  can  testify. 
This  fording  place  below  the  mouth  of  Buffalo 
Paunch  creek  had  been  long  known  not  only  as  a 
frequent  watering  place  but  one  of  the  principal 
fording  places  of  the  migratory  bands  of  antelope 
in  their  search  for  greener  pastures  and  in  trying 
to  evade  a  too  close  fellowship  with  the  wolves 
and  coyotes  that  hovered  about  them  in  lambing 
time.  The  wolf  would — as  a  rule — rather  give 
up  his  prey  than  take  a  swim  to  secure  it. 

It  is  with  a  band  of  perhaps  fifty  in  number  of 
these  observing  animals  that  we  will  merge  our 
personality  for  a  few  hours,  and  see  only  with  an 
antelope's  eyes  and  hear  only  through  an  ante- 
lope's ears.  This  band  had  just  come  down  from 
the  breaks  about  Fort  Clark  on  the  west  side  and 
were  bound  for  the  east  bank  of  the  Missouri, 
although  the  air  was  chilly  and  the  water  ice  cold. 
But  their  purpose  was  a  fixed  one,  so,  following 
their  old  leaders  who  had  buffed  the  wild  Waters 
in  many  similar  expeditions,  plunged  to  their  icy 
bath,  and  with  heads  quartering  up  stream,  sawed 
the  stiff  current  with  their  nimble  legs,  until  reach- 


177  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

ing  the  edies  along  the  opposite  shore.  With  a 
gay  bound  they  sherried  up  the  bank  jumping  and 
frisking  over  the  bench  land  until  reaching  a  high 
point  where  they  halted  and  turned  in  circles, 
as  they  climbed  each  projecting  point. 

As  the  antelope  ascended  the  highest  bluffs 
they  made  cursory  survey  of  their  environments 
as  is  usual  with  their  kind.  The  wind  was  blow- 
ing hard  and  raw  from  the  southeast — a  rift 
of  dull  grey  clouds  were  passing  rapidly  over- 
head and  tiny  flecks  of  half  hail,  half  snow,  was 
falling  from  them.  The  keen  scent  of  the  ante- 
lope detected  a  something  to  the  south  of  them 
and  curiosity — the  great  weakness  of  these  ani- 
mals in  early  summer — impelled  them  forward 
until  the  object  or  objects  making  this  scent  could 
be  detected  with  the  eye.  Keeping  the  ridge  with 
a  resolute  old  buck  in  advance,  the  band  of  curi- 
osity seekers  marched  nearly  one  mile  before 
they  came  to  a  full  stop.  Away  down  the  bench- 
land  near  the  breaks  of  Turtle  creek  an  enemy, 
more  destructive  to  their  kind  than  the  ferocious 
wolves,  was  sighted.  This  was  a  party  of  the 
human  kind — perhaps  twenty  in  all— following  each 
other  as  does  their  own  kind  on  the  march— in 
single  file.  These  oncomers  were  easily  recog- 
nized as  to  specie  by  the  antelope  and  beheld 
their  appearance  with  much  tribulation.  They 
were  of  the  Indian  race — on  foot — and  with  guns, 
pikes  and  bows  swinging  across  their  backs  and 
walking  along  at  the  foot  of  the  main  ridge  in  a 
wearysome  sort  of  way.  They  had  evidently  came 


A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER.  178 

without  rest  for  some  distance  as  was  shown  in 
their  motions.  The  old  buck  on  the  hill  must 
have  divined  something  of  this  kind  for  he  stood 
with  his  head  and  prong  horns  erect — fully  ex- 
posed to  the  view  of  his  oncoming  enemies,  yet 
gave  no  signal  of  alarm  to  his  own  followers  who 
stood  like  a  bunch  of  sand  lull  cranes  watching 
unguarded  lines.  Beyond  changing  his  position 
in  half  circles  the  guardian  of  his  Mock  did  not 
loose  his  interest  in  the  intruders,  and  when  with- 
in a  mile  of  his  lookout  seemed  satisfied  when — 
after  crossing  a  coulee  at  the  base  of  the  high 
ridge  facing  the  river  saw  one  after  the  other  as 
they  arrived  at  this  point  lay  flat  upon  the  ground 
except  one  who  remained  in  a  sitting    position. 

About  this  time  another  line  of  people  mounted 
upon  fleet  horses  came  up  from  a  deep  coulee 
near  the  breaks  of  Turtle  creek.  They  appeared 
to  be  traveling  at  a  more  rapid  rate  and  were  in 
greater  numbers  than  the  footmen  who  had  pre- 
ceeded  them.  The  presence  of  the  mounted  peo- 
ple threw  the  watchful  antelope  into  consternation 
and  some  minutes  later  a  regular  panic  by  the  re- 
ports of  guns  as  the  horsemen  reached  the  point 
near  where  the  resting  footmen  lay.  The  animals 
then  bunched  and  scampered  northward  to  the 
next  projecting  point  where  another  surprise  was 
awaiting  them.  Near  the  river  bank  opposite  to 
them  was  still  another  party — much  smaller  than 
the  others  and  all  mounted,  with  two  traveauxs  in 
trailing.  A  mounted  figure  in  scarlet  led  the  ad- 
vance and  all  were  traveling  at  a  rapid  gait  south- 


179  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

ward.  A  red  waving  blanket  was  no  enticement  to 

the  antelope  now— only  adding  terror  to  their  hearts 
and  with  the  ileetness  of  a  soaringbird  they  passed 
from  the  sight  and  sound  of  the  commingling  clans. 

From  the  antelopes'  first  view  of  what  proved 
to  be  a  romantic  encounter,  the  narrator  now 
seeks  the  plain  statement  of  Two  Bulls  and  other 
survivors  of  a  drama  in  which  the  only  audience 
were  the  fifty  antelope — and  they  stampeded  at 
the  raising  of  the  curtain  in  the  first  act. 

The  party  of  footmen  that  had  first  appeared 
to  the  antelope  was  the  war  party  of  twenty  Aric- 
arees  under  Swift  Runner.  They  had  been  trav- 
eling all  nioht — and  were  without  food  or  blankets. 
The  little  stock  of  parched  corn  and  dried  buffalo 
meat  that  they  had  started  from  home  with  was 
exhausted.  It  was  nearing  the  noon  hour  when 
the  advance  came  to  a  small  circle  of  unburned 
prairie  across  the  coulee — a  little  north  of  west  of 
the  present  site  of  Washburn,  McLean's  capital. 
Having  no  blankets  these  tufts  presented  the  one 
opportunity  for  a  nap  though  thoroughly  moist- 
ened by  a  constant  falling  of  sleet  and  snow. 

In  ten  minutes  after  their  arrival  nearly  every 
warrior  was  in  slumber  save  the  sentinel  who  faced 
their  backward  trail.  He  too,  was  almost  asleep 
when  his  heavy  eyes  caught  sight  of  something 
raising  from  a  coulee  a  mile  away,  when  he  yelled 
in  alarm:  "Sonona — Sonona"  (Sioux — Sioux)  and 
a  moment  later  thirty  Sioux  warriors  all  mounted 
on  fleet  horses  with  uncovered  guns  in  their  hands 


A  ROMANTIC  ENCOUNTER.  180 

moved  down  upon  the  startled — half  dazed  sleep- 
ers, yelling  like  demons.  The  Aricarees  followed 
down  the  coulee  shooting  as  they  ran  until  the 
little  group  of  hills  formed  by  an  old  land  slide 
was  reached.  Here  another  party  of  Sioux  fired 
from  ambush  and  a  Sioux  woman  urged  her  war- 
riors "to  be  strong,"  She  was  killed  and  scalped 
and  another  war  woman  in  scarlet  pulled  from  her 
horse  and  scalped  alive.  Young  Two  Bears  the 
Sioux  leader  being  superbly  mounted,  Fighting 
Bear  an  Aricaree  brave  from  his  posidon  in  the 
slide,  shot  and  killed  him  while  leading  a  flanking 
party  trying  to  intercept  his  enemy  before  they 
could  reach  the  timber.  Bear  Robe  supporting 
Fighting  Bear,  rushed  forward  and  secured  the 
Sioux  chief's  horse  amid  a  shower  of  arrows,  buck- 
shot and  bullets  but  came  forward  with  his  booty, 
unscratched.  The  Aricarees  beinof  fouoht  in  front 
and  flank  by  twice  their  number  retreated  to  the 
west  or  upper  end  of  the  dunes  or  hills  thence  to 
the  river  bank.  Here,  Swift  Runner,  oblivious 
to  his  own  personal  safety,  standing  on  the  cdg& 
seeing  that  his  men  were  all  safe,  drew  attention 
from  a  Sioux  marksman  and  fell  over  the  bank 
mortally  wounded.  He  was  helped  to  the  cap- 
tured horse  and  tied  on  the  saddle.  The  Arica- 
rees finding  their  young  leader  sho*"  became  so 
wrought  up  that  they  climbed  the  high  point  from 
the  river  only  to  find  the  Sioux  in  full  retreat 
bearing  their  dead  upon  traveauxs. 

In  the  early  morning  of  May  24,  1869,  thechoni- 


i.M  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

cler  of  the  events  herein  narrated,  was  moving 
about  the  Aricaree  quarter  oi  the  Indian  village 
at  Berthold  when  cries  and  lamentations  issuing 
from  Son  of  the  Stars  lodge  attracted  attention, 
and  I  entered  its  spacious  room  to  find  a  hundred 
or  more  Indian  women  crying,  cutting  off  fingers 
and  otherwise  mutilating:  themselves.  On  a  couch 
lay  a  form  breathing  heavily  surrounded  by  the 
medicine  men  and  chief  councillors  of  the  tribe. 
This  scene  witnessed  the  closing  moments  of  Swift 
Runner's  life — the  end  of  his  father's  hopes  and  his 
own  ambitions. 

Again  good  memory  recalls  a  scene  of  the  early 
seventies,  being  also  sequel  to  this  romantic  com- 
bat. Posing  on  a  scaffold,  and  wrapped  in  scarlet 
cloths,  resting  on  an  ancient  burying  ground  near 
the  south  shore  of  Painted  Woods  lake  could  be 
seen— seasons  in  and  seasons  out — from  the  spring 
of  1869  to  that  of  1873,  a  lone  bier  containing  all 
that  was  mortal  of  the  young  Sioux  chieftain,  who 
prior  to  that  fatal  encounter  in  the  sand  dunes — 
had  hopes  and  dreams  for  his  life  planned  for  a  far 
different  setting. 

The  body  of  the  brave  priestess  of  fate — the 
war  woman — was  given  scant  courtesy  and  hidden 
away  without  ritual.  Her  mission  was  fullfiled. 
Time. the  great  leveler  of  all  things  had  done  its 
work  swiftly  here — and  adjusted  the  lines  of  justice 
and  of  equality  disregarded  at  the  burial  place — 
honors  to  the  one,  neglect  or  scant  courtesy  to  the 
other.  The  finale  followed  the  great  ice  gorge 
on  the  upper  Missouri  river  in  the  early  spring 
of  1873.  since  when  the  bier  of  the  chief  and  the 
cached  bones  of  the  mystic  woman  from  Medicine 
Bear's  camp  have  alike  disappeared  from  mortal 
ken. 


An  Indian  Burial  Ground  on  Upper  Missouri  River. 
From  a  photo  by  Morrow  in  1870. 


THE  CLOSING  STORY. 

DATING  from  the.  consolidation  of  the  principal 
fur  interests  of  the  Northwest  into  what 
was  styled  the  American  Fur  Company,  which 
event  came  to  pass  about  the  year  1830 — the 
wild  inhabitants  of  the  Upper  Missouri  country 
were  on  the  threshold  of  a  great  change.  A  change 
to  be  dreaded  and  feared  by  these  unsophisticated 
peoples — and  well  they  may  have  feared. 

In  the  thousands  of  years  of  their  existance  on 
these  high  treeless  plains — life  succeeding  life — 
death  succeeding  death,  with  no  more  precept- 
ible  change  to  them  in  the  face  of  time's  passage 
than  that  which  came  and  went  with  the  lite  of  the 
buffalo,  from  whose  flesh  these  nomads  fed.  The 
millions  upon  millions  of  small  round  circles  of 
stones  that  everywhere  make  plastic  sign  in  the 
upper  Missouri  river  country,  is  the  plain  and  in- 
delible record  of  the  thousands  of  years  of  non- 
progressive, unchangable  Indian  life. 

The  introduction  of  the  fur  and  hide  hunter 
working  under  corporate  control  as  paid  hirelings 
in  the  Indian  country  was  a  change — but  a  sad 
one  for  all  existing  animal  lite  in  an  arcadia  pecu- 
liarlyand  fittingly  these  animals  own.  The  red  in- 
habitants who  had  claimed  their  very  beginning  had 
sprung  from  the  stones  of  the    prairie  must    now 


183  k  ALKJDOSCOITC  LIVES 

make  welcome  to  a  people  bearing  a  white  heat 
that  would  melt  away  these  decendents  of  the 
rocks.  The  change  would  be  rapid.  The  caldron  of 
seething  genii  enveloped  in  fumes  would  spread 
its  contaminating  effects  to  everything  with  life  in 
it.  Its  mission  was  to  destroy — to  supplant — to 
make  over  or  make  new. 

It  was  the  expected  that  came  in  this  instance. 
Within  the  compass  of  seventy  years  animated 
nature  in  that  region  had  wholly  changed.  The 
vast  areas  that  had  supported  and  kept  fat  the  buf- 
falo, elk,  deer,  antelope,  beaver  and  the  numerous 
species  of  its  native  bird  kinds,  which  had  roamed 
and  swarmed  in  countless  myriads  there,  had  for 
the  most  part  disappeared,  and  some  of  the  species 
leaving  barely  a  trace  of  their  being,  when  the  new 
kinds  had  came  in  the  fullness  of  possession. 
This  may  be  in  the  order  of  evolution.  It  may 
mean  a  survival  of  the  fittest — but  some  of  us 
cannot  be  made  to  think  so. 

The  territory  embraced  within  the  lands  of 
of  this  great  fur  company  consolidation  contained 
the  homes  and  hunting  grounds  of  many  strong, 
self-reliant  Indian  nations  or  tribes  who  were  ex- 
pected to  be  under  control  of  their  new  masters, 
and  who  aimed  to  assume  practical  guardianship . 
of  all  these  Indian  peoples  who  then  dwelt  within 
their  cordon,  and  absolute  control  of  the  lives  and 
property  of  the  thousands  who  lived  along  the 
entire  twelve  hundred  miles  beginning  with  the 
Sioux  country  on  the  south  and  ending  in  the 
Blackfoot  territory  on  the  north,  was  in  the  keeping 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  184 

of  Pierre  Choteau  and  other  controlling  spirits  of 
that  great  aggregation.  The  wildest  dreams  of 
Burr  and  Blenerhasset  was  being  literally  carried  to 
fulfilment  in  the  northwestern  corner  of  their  once 
projected  empire — but  so  unostentatious  in  manner 
and  so  practical  in  method  were  these  masters  of 
traffic  and  trade  in  the  then  little  known  Upper 
Missouri  and  tributary  country  with  its  resources  of 
wealth  and  area,  it  was  suffered  to  pass  without 
question — without  interest  even  by  the  authorities 
at  the  Federal  seat  of  government. 

While  the  reign  of  the  autocrats  of  the  fur 
companies  was  not  a  long  one,  probably  of  fifty 
years,  and  toward  its  close  the  Government  at 
Washington  gradually  contracted  the  territory  of 
the  former  until  only  the  extreme  northern  portion 
remained  as  the  play  ground  of  she  fur  traders, 
and  even  within  that  territory  they  suffered  re- 
striction and  to  a  considerable  extent  were  shorn 
of  that  absolutism  in  the  management  of  the  na- 
tive Indian  tribes  to  which  they  had  first  arrogantly 
claimed  assumption  to  power  of  overlordship  only 
by  reason  of  the  occupation  of  certain  desirable 
sites  in  the  Indian  country,  and  their  given  rights 
to  trade  within. 

In  those  days  of  the  American  Fur  Company's 
regime,  Indian  agents  though  usually  appointed 
from  Washington,  received  their  recommendation 
from  and  were  mere  agents  of  the  fur  company 
lords  and  were  held  responsible  to  them  as  a  cor- 
poration and  not  to  the  United  States,  for  their 
official  acts  during  the  said  agents  tenure  of  office. 


185  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

With  but  few  honorable  exceptions  this  was  the 
condition  of  affairs  dating  from  the  arrival  of 
Indian  agent  Sanford  in  the  Indian  country  in  the 
American  Fur  company  boat  Yellowstone  in  1833, 
to  the  closing  days  of  the  Durfee  &  Peck  com- 
pany in  1S74. 

The  advent  of  the  military  in  what  was  after- 
ward known  as  the  Division  of  Dakota  made 
some  changes  in  a  local  way,  but  the  mediumship 
of  post  settlers  and  their  influence  with  the  ap- 
pointing power  at  Washington,  the  Durfee  & 
Peck  company  continued  in  the  lines  of  the  old 
fur  companies  as  masters  of  the  situation  in  the 
Upper  Missouri  region  and  contiguous  country. 
Indeed  many  minor  officers  at  some  of  the  mili- 
tary posts  seemed  entirely  too  willing  to  assist 
the  great  corporation  against  possible  rivalry  from 
the  small  trading  houses  that  had  found  encour- 
agement from  some  of  the  Indian  tribes. 

It  had  ever  been  the  policy  not  only  of  the  In- 
dian traders  but  military  also,  stationed  at  interior 
posts  in  the  Indian  country  to  discourage  the  com- 
ing of  the  van  of  adventurous  spirits  seeking  life 
of  congeniality  in  the  interior  wilderness.  It  had 
been  the  practice  of  the  fur  companies  in  their 
latter  days  to  discourage  the  advent  of  any  one 
or  the  stay  of  any  one  not  in  their  employ,  about 
their  own  zone  of  action.  Indian  agents,  also, 
discouraged  the  curiosity  seeker,  the  traveler  or 
the  plain  citizen  -'looking  for  a  job."  To  assist 
along  the  same  lines,  General  Stanley  from  his 
headquarters    at    Fort    Sully,    in  August  1S69, — 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  186 

issued  his  famous  order  No.  12  which  was  ex- 
pected to  make  clearance  of  the  free  citizen  pop- 
ulation by  fair  means  or  foul.*  Woodyards  were 
specifically  numbered  as  to  the  Sioux  country, 
in  line  with  the  treaty  of  1868  with  these  people, 
and  soldiers  discharged  from  the  military  posts 
were  given  transportation  and  hustled  out  of  the 
country  without  delay,  and  with  no  preference  as 


*An  unpleasant  situation  in  which  the  chronicler 
of  these  sketches  found  himself  a  short  time  after 
General  Stanley  had  issued  his  order  No.  12  will 
show  its  workings  when  a  military  understrapper 
with  little  nerve  and  less  sense  is  clothed  with  its 
execution.  During  the  haying  season  of  18G9,  I 
was  employed  by  Contractor  Dillon  at  Grand  River 
agency  as  general  guard  owing  to  the  hostile  atti- 
tude of  many  of  the  Sioux  bands  encamped  there. 
One  day  the  last  week  in  /.  .  ^ust  a  brother  of  the 
Uncpapa  chief  Long  Soldier  armed  himself  with 
bow  and  arrows  rode  out  to  the  agency  cattle  herd 
on  Oak  creek  and  seeking  out  the  herder — a  young 
man  named  Cook — commenced  to  shoot  arrows  in- 
to him  without  any  apparent  provocation.  The 
herder  was  unarmed,  and  no  means  of  defence  ex- 
cept a  "bull"  whip  which  he  applied  vigorously  to 
the  Indians  face,  who  became  disconcerted  thereat 
and  allowed  the  herder  to  make  his  escape  on  his 
fleet  pony  to  the  agency.  He  barely  reached  there 
before  fainting,  as  three  arrows  had  entered  his 
breast  and  were  embedded  firmly.  It  was  found 
advisable  to  have  the  wounded  man  xaken  to  Fort 
Sully  and  placed  in  the  surgeon's  care  there,  and  I 
was  selected  to  take  him  down.  The  distance  was 
over  a  hundred  miles  and  for  the  most  part  without 
trail,  and  with  the  exception  of  the  Little  Cheyenne 
crossing — no  wood  on  the  route.  Knowing  this  I 
laid  in  a  supply  of  fuel  at  the  Cheyenne  and  carried 
it  thirty  miles  beyond  to  a  lot  of  sink  holes  called 
Rock  creek — where — before  making  a  continuation 


187  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

to  their  remaining  even  though  offered  employ- 
ment or  were  given  a  chance  opening  for  business. 
The  order  applied  to  all  Indian  reservations 
north  of  the  Poncas  and  Yanktons  and  south 
from  Fort  Buford,  which  practically  took  in  all  the 
country    on    both   sides  of  the  Missouri  between 

of  the  journey  "cashed"  the  balance  for  the  return 
trip  from  the  fort.  A  few  miles  beyond  the  creek 
we  came  through  a  swail  where  we  noted  a  fresh, 
heavy  trail  which  we  had  supposed  to  be  buffalo, 
and  so  reported  on  our  arrival  at  the  fort.  But  we 
here  learned  that  the  garrison  herd  had  stampeded 
the  previous  night,  and  then  rightly  guessed  these 
were  the  tracks  we  had  seen.  A  sargeant  came  to 
us  for  precise  information  as  to  locality  which  was 
cheerfully  and  correctly  given  and  then  I  supposed 
the  incident  was  closed.  Leaving  my  patient  for 
whose  recovery  the  surgeon  there  had  grave  douot, 
I  made  preparations  for  the  homeward  journey. 
Owing  to  the  lateness  in  starting  it  was  after  dark 
when  reaching  sight  of  my  expected  camp — I  found 
a  surprise.  A  cheerful  camp  fire  was  burning, 
but  my  wood  cache  was  feeding  the  flame.  Acting 
on  the  information  thus  given,  a  lieutenant  with  a 
squad  of  men  went  out  there — found  the  cattle  first, 
the  wood  later  on  and  set  up  camp  at  my  expense. 
This  would  have  been  cheerfully  given  but  that  was 
not  enough.  The  gallant  (?)  lieutenant, whose  name 
as  I  remember  it — was  Hooton — was  not  only  refus- 
ed the  use  of  my  own  wood  to  cook  supper  but 
placed  a  guard  over  my  wagon  whose  instructions 
from  the  officer  was,  "shoot  that  man  or  his  dog  if 
they  stir  from  under  the  wagon."  The  dog  was  a 
faithful  shepherd  belonging  to  my  employer  and 
who  was  well  fagged  from  his  70  miles  per  day  jour- 
ney. To  save  the  faithful  animal  from  possible  harm 
I  used  my  pocket  handkerchief  for  a  dog  collar.  The 
officer  made  no  explanation  or  apology  for  his  mis- 
conduct, and  surrounded  thus  by  his  soldiers  and 
being  a  stranger  to  them  all — was  in  no  position  to 
demand  it. 


THE  SNAKE— A  Ponca  Warrior, 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  188 

the  points  named.  Being  a  navigable  stream  the 
Missouri  river  had  been  passed  upon  by  the  dis- 
trict court  as  a  public  highway  and  the  right  of 
passage  and  matters  in  connection  therewith  could 
not  be  legally  interfeared  with  by  any  order  em- 
inating  from  a  post  commander  or  the  commander 
of  a  military  division  or  department.  While  the 
military  authorities  had  the  unquestioned  right 
to  put  their  foot  down  hard  on  the  violators 
and  disturbers  of  the  peace  within  their  own  juris- 
diction order,  No.  12  went  beyond  this  in  many 
cases  and  after  much  acrimonious  discussion  on 
the  subject — this  unwarranted  military  edict  was 
revoked. 

The  section  of  territory  known  then,  as  now,  as 
Painted  Woods — familiar  to  most  of  the  readers 
of  these  sketches — was  called  neutral  grounds  or 
no  men's  lands — although  both  the  Sioux  and 
Aricarees  laid  claim  by  conquest  or  inheritance — 
and  had  been  a  bone  of  contention  between  these 
belligerent  people  for  many  decades.  Through 
rival  yards  the  subject  was  brought  to  their  atten- 
with  white  partisans  on  either  side.  The  number 
of  woodyards  or  camps  in  the  Sioux  country  was 
limited  to  fourteen  and  in  the  order  of  assign- 
ment, the  most  northernmost  yard  was  established 
at  Sibley  Island  with  Frank  LeFromboise,  the  in- 
terpreter, as  grantee  of  the  same.  This  was  in 
the  Sioux  treaty  of  1868,  and  made  an  express 
condition.  A  branch  yard  was  established  at  the 
Painted  Woods  with  Baker  &  Morris  in  charge. 
Some    weeks    previous  to  this  Messers  Reider  & 


189  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

Gluck  had  moved  down  from  Fort  Berthold  and 
took  up  their  quarters  in  the  Woods  under  per- 
mit of  and  on  behalf  of  the  Aricarees  who  claimed 
they  had  never  relinquished  their  rights  to  the 
premises  nor  were  they  asked  to  do  so.  The  two 
rival  yards  employed  sixteen  choppers  in  all. 

About  the  ist  of  November  1869,  by  mutual 
re-arrangement — leaving  Reider  out  of  the  deal — 
Gluck  joined  with  Morris  in  establishing  a  new 
woodyard  south  of  the  Fort  Stevenson  military 
reservation,  using  Gluck's  Aricaree  permit  in  se- 
curing the  timber  for  this  purpose.  This  point 
of  varied  fortune  and  misfortune — good  for  some 
— evil  for  others,  and  which  as  a  point  was  aptly 
termed  ''medicine"  by  the  Indians  or  a  "hoodoo" 
by  their  pale  face  successors. 

The  working  force  at  this  yard  numbered  nine 
men — young,  intelligent  and  vigorous — who  had 
started  in  life  with  a  head  full  of  romantic  ideas, 
now  in  process  of  practical  fulfilment.  Wood 
chopping  was  the  only  employment  offered  and 
this  was  accepted  as  an  entering  wedge  to  a  future 
foothold  with  more  promise.  The  buildings,  two 
in  number,  were  pallisaded  with  a  view  of  Indian 
defense.  The  rooms  were  commodious  and  every 
evening  after  supper  a  general  discussion  was  had 
in  relation  to  the  situation  along  the  Missouri  river, 
especially  that  relating  to  General  Stanley's  order 
No.  12;  the  attitude  of  the  Durfee  &  Peck  com- 
pany; the  Reil  rebellion;  Sioux  and  Aricaree  war 
and  many  other  subjects  of  local  prominence  in 
those  days. 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  190 

As  the  evening  discussions  became  more  acri- 
monious and  it  may  be  said  more  interesting,  a 
resolution  was  offered  and  passed  by  this  motley 
gathering  to  organize  in  due  form  and  for  the  dis- 
tinct purpose  of  bettering  the  condition  and  offer- 
ing assistance  in  unity  to  such  citizens  within  our 
reach  who  needed  and  deserved  it.  The  form  of 
organization  was  after  the  manner  of  the  Indian 
tribes  and  its  government  conducted  in  much  the 
same  lashion.*  One  chief  and  two  chief  councillors 
formed  the  supreme  head.  A  soldier  band  under 
a  head  soldier  and  a  "keeper  of  the  records" 
finished  the  simplicity  of  its  organization.  Like  Ma- 
homet's first  converts  in  the  caves  about  Medina, 
the  members  of  this  primative  organization  took 
clairvoyant  view  of  the  future  and  saw  sign  of 
the  fruition  of  their  action  that  reached  beyond 
the  group  of  woodhawks  dressed  out  with  fringed 
buckskin,  edifying  each  other  with  bits  of  wisdom 
which  had  generated  in  their  respective  craniums. 
It  was  resolved  that  each  member  of  the  order 
should  become  proficient  in  at  least  one  Indian 
language  even  though  it  became  necessary  to 
utilize  the  services  of  a  "sleeping  dictionary"  to 
further  the  end  sought.     In  the    selection  of  offi- 

*Some  account  is  given  of  this  bantling  organiza- 
tion in  the  sketch  "A  War  Woman'"  in  pages  92-3-4 
of  Frontier  and  Indian  Life,  also  some  reference  in 
this  work  in  the  sketch  "Chief  of  the  Stranglers." 
This  statement  as  above  discribed  is  an  addition, 
not  a  repitition  of  the  afore  mentioned  sketches. 


191  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

ccrs  for  the  order  the  claim  for  Mr.  Morris,  the 
woodyard  proprietor,  was  passed  by,  and  a  young 
man  named  Wheeler  chosen  chief  of  the  organi- 
zation instead.  Mr.  Morris  was  offended  thereat. 
He  made  frequent  trips  to  Fort  Stevenson — and 
being  a  Jew  and  a  shrewd  one,  he  ingratiated 
himself  with  the  officers  of  the  garrison;  was  in 
full  fellowship  and  had  to  keep  up  his  end  in  gab 
at  official  entertainments  by  day  or  by  night — in 
parlour  or  officers'   club. 

Morris  was  resourceful.  While  he  had  belittled 
the  "chemerical  ideas"  as  he  styled  the  efforts  of 
the  new  order  at  the  woodyard — to  the  officers  at 
the  garrison  he  put  an  entirely  different  face  to  it. 
To  them  he  imparted  the  organization  as  an  order 
of  mystery  with  its  day  meetings  over  big  camp 
fires  when  they  should  all  be  chopping  his  wood. 
He  told  them  that  the  society  was  known  as  the 
Medicine  Lodge;  that  its  chief  had  thousands  of 
rounds  of  fixed  amunition  and  a  "cache"  of  many 
guns  of  an  improved  pattern.  That  he  had  first 
known  the  chief  of  this  new  society  when  he  was 
hanging  out  about  Douphan's  Rapids  in  the  com- 
pany of  some  others  who  were  in  the  business  of 
gathering  pine  knots  to  supply  passing  steamers. 
Morris,  himself,  at  this  time  was  proprietor  of  a 
wolfing  camp  above  the  mouth  of  Milk  river. 
This  in  1867 — two  years  previous. 

Morris  further  notified  the  officers  that  his  whole 
chopping  crowd  were  making  ready  to  go  over 
the  line  to  assist  General  Riel  in  his  efforts  to 
create  an  inland  republic  out  of  the  Saskatchewan 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  192 

basin.  He  surprised  them  still  more  when  he  in- 
formed his  startled  listeners  that  their  innocent 
looking  post  interpreter  who  went  poking  quietly 
about  the  garrison  was  not  the  verdant  Jake  that 
he  appeared  to  but  a  full  fledged  officer  with 
a  commission  in  his  pocket  bearing  a  captain's 
rank  in  General  Riel's  army. 

Information  of  this  character  created  a  big  crop 
of  "bug  bears"  among  the  officers  which  the  dep- 
lomaiic  little  Jew  thoroughly  enjoyed.  Had  these 
officers  done  a  little  investigating  for  themselves 
instead  of  taking  everything  for  granted  from 
soap  bubblers  of  the  Morris  stripe,  the  scarecrow 
produced  by  the  finding  of  that  letter  in  cipher 
among  Reider's  affects  after  his  death  by  violence 
June  nth,  1870,*  or  the  sensational  dispatch  sent 
over  the  wires  from  Fort  Sully  and  undoubt- 
edly eminating  from  the  same  cotiere  of  influence 
that  had  caused  General  Stanley  to  make  his 
mistake  as  a  division  commander  in  issuing  order 
No.  12.  The  dispatch  had  its  basis  on  the 
sudden  death  of  Major  Galpin  at  Grand  River 
agency  sometime  in  1870.  The  Major  was  an  old 
Indian  trader  of  long  service — of  independent 
notions  and  fair  character  and  run  a  trading  house 
on  his  own  hook  and  independent  of  the  Durfee 
and  Peck  company  and  other  than  with  the  writer 
of  this  sketch  who  had  a  personal  regard  for  him, 
was  unknown  to  any  members  of  the  Medicine 
Lodge  debating  club — for  that  was  all  the  organ- 

*See  sketch,  "Letter  in  Cipher,"  page  131 — Fron- 
tier and  Indian  Life. 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

ization  amounted  to.  The  Major's  death  was  sud- 
den but  attributed  to  natural  causes  by  the  agency 
physician  who  had  attended  him.  But  nevertheless 
these  tacts  in  Galpin's  case  did  not  prevent  the 
sending  over  the  wires  to  Washington  and  to  the 
associated  press  the  above  mentioned  dispatch — 
which  read  in  part  as  follows: 

"Two  hundred  miles  above  this  point  is  a  place 
called  Painted  Woods  where  a  band  of  outlaws 
are  cutting  and  destroying  government  timber 
there.  The  death  of  the  Major  (Galpin)  is  at- 
tributed to  mysterious  influences  from  this  source 
and  whose  evil  ramifications  extends  throughout 
all  the  Northwestern  Indian  tribes." 

One  raw  morning  in  June  1855  a  band  of  South 
Assinaboines  were  encamped  in  a  protected  gulch 
on  the  south  side  of  Woody  mountain  near  the 
international  boundary  line.  The  Indians,  men, 
woman  and  children  numbered  about  forty  alto- 
gather.  They  seemed  scant  of  apparel,  had  few 
horses  and  the  migratory  herds  of  buffalo  had 
sheered  to  the  westward  and  were  then  moving 
well  out  toward  the  Milk  river  tributaries  and  the 
old  men  had  advised  the  party  to  break  camp  and 
follow  in  the  wake  of  the  moving  bisons,  otherwise 
they  would  stay  where  they  were  only  to  starve. 

This  camp  of  wretched  beings  were  just  issuing 
from  a  whiskey  debauch  of  several  days  duration, 
the  effect  being  visible  on  the  countenance  of 
those  who  partook  of  the  drugged  potion  as  well 
as  those  who  did  not  partake  but  were  compelled 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  194 

to  witness  the  horrors  incident  to  frenzied  savages, 
even  worse  than  senseless,  stupid  beings,  were 
their  brothers  and  fathers,  and  in  some  cases,  sis- 
ters and  mothers.  Even  the  hardened  and  villian- 
ous  venders  in  these  compounds*  have  put  them- 
selves on  record  as  saying  there  were  none  of  the 
northwestern  tribes  so  easy  a  prey,  and  none  on 
whom  the  accursed  stuff  left  a  more  baneful  train, 
than  in  the  camps  of  the  south  Assinaboines. 

The  resolution  to  move  camp  to  the  southwest 
was  agreed  upon  and  the  stricken  and  ill-equipped 
cavalcade  set  forth  upon  their  journey  of  chance 
and  hope.  Owing  to  the  drain  that  the  whiskey 
traders  had  made  on  their  horse  herd,  many  of 
the  party,  especially  the  females  were  compelled 
to  walk  and  lead  their  ponies  in  pack.  Among 
these,  sorefooted  and  weary  from  her  first  days' 
tramp  was  a  little  ten  year  old  girl,  who  always 
vivacious  and  lively,  came  into  camp  completely 
tired  out.  So  unusual  was  her  demeanor  from 
other  days,  that  on  the  second  day  of  the  march  a 
yearling  colt  was  secured  and  the  girl  tied  on  its 
back.  They  had  encamped  on  a  high  point  over- 
looking a  creek,  and  a  deep-cut,  angling  defile, 
must  be  crossed  on  the  resumption  of  the  march. 
In  this  coulee  a  war  party  of  Stoneys  or  Crees  had 
secreted  themselves  during  the  night  and  were 
awaiting  the  coming  of  their  old  enemies.  The 
surprise  was  a  complete  one  to  the  Asssinaboines 
and  five  of  the  party  were  killed, among  them  the 
parents  of  the  young  female  Mezeppa.     The  colt 

♦Larpenteur's  Journal. 


195  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

was  unruly  and  not  disposed  to  pack  its  fair  bur- 
den with  much  complacency.and  the  girl's  mother 
was  leading  the  animal  when  she  fell  as  one  of 
the  victims  of  the  war  party  in  ambush.  The  colt 
finding  its  halter  slackened  and  terrified  by  the 
din  and  yells  of  battle,  charged  madly  over  the 
prairie  bearing  the  tethered  girl  upon  its  back. 
In  the  jumping  and  jolting  the  thongs  became  un- 
loosened and  she  was  pitched  forward  upon  a  pile 
of  rocks,  where  she  lay  apparently  unconscious 
for  several  hours,  at  the  end  of  which  time  she 
was  found  by  some  of  her  people  and  taken  to 
their  improvised  camp  and  placed  in  the  care  of 
the  medicine  man.  Her  injuries  were  found  to  be 
serious  though  not  fatal.  The  young  girl's  bright 
gaiety  seemed  to  depart  and  brooding  austerity 
settle  upon  her  once  laughing  and  happy  face.  Fate 
decreed  that  henceforth  she  was  to  be  known  as  the 
Hunchback.  She  would  be  derided  and  abused; 
a  subject  of  contempt  and  ridicule  by  her  fellow 
beings — and  why?     Oh!  the  enigma  of  humanity. 

The  winter  of  1865-6  in  the  Upper  Missouri 
country,  while  not  made  note  of  in  those  days  as 
an  extremely  long  one  by  its  inhabitants,  was  well 
remembered  for  its  snow  fall  and  the  severity  of 
its  storms.  In  many  cases  even  the  buffalo  met 
their  death  by  the  extreme  cold  and  exposure  to 
the  drifting  snow  that  beat  against  them  by  a  sixty 
mile  an  hour  wind.  In  this  manner — curious  as 
it  may  seem  to  some — large  numbers  of  buffalos 
were  destroyed  from  the  herds,  that   had   drifted 


IRON  BULL— Chief  of  the  Crow  Nation. 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  196 

about  the  mouth  of  the  Big  Muddy  stream  that 
comes  down  from  the  Woody  Mountain  country. 
The  most  severe  of  these  storms  was  about  the 
opening  of  the  new  year,  and  when  its  fury 
was  spent,  in  addition  to  the  distruction  wrought 
among  the  buffalo  and  horse  herds  two  families 
of  Assinaboines  were  found  frozen  in  their  skin 
tepees  in  the  willows  near  old  Fort  Union.  The 
dead  numbered  six  but  in  some  way  a  little  baby 
girl  was  saved — and  as  no  especial  interest  was 
taken  in  the  child  by  its  surviving  relatives  it  was 
given  over  to  the  care  of  the  Hunchback  woman, 
then  living  alone.  This  deformed  woman  had 
served  a  medicine  man  with  an  uncanny  reputa- 
tion— and  whose  lodge  keeper  she  had  been. 
In  time  the  child  also  shared  with  its  good  pro- 
tector the  ostracism  meeted  out  to  her  for  that 
which  fate  alone  was  responsible,  and  obloquy 
whose  avoidance  they  never  dared  to  hope  for 
except  in  the  seclusion  of  their  lodge,  hid  from 
observation  of  the  living  World — only  now  and 
again  a  curl  of  smoke  that  arose  above  the  willow 
bar  and  marked  the  whereabouts  of  the  lone 
lodge  and  its  quiet  inmates.  As  a  timid  antelope 
wounded  to  its  death  in  the  midst  of  its  kind  by 
some  cruel  hunter  will  leave  its  companions  to 
suffer  alone  in  some  secluded  retreat — as  though 
to  bring  no  distress  on  those  who  could  not  relieve 
its  pain  or  staunch  the  gaping  wound  riven  by  the 
wicked,  but  bear  its  wretched  misfortune  in  un- 
complaining solitude  and  await  the  death  that  its 
slayer  must  also  face — so  did  they. 


197  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

With  the  wear  and  tear  of  passing  time — the 
old  fur  company  fort  opposite  the  mouth  of  Yel- 
lowstone river  had  served  the  purpose  of  its  con- 
struction— filled  its  ordained  mission — and  when 
the  summer's  sun  of  1870  cast  its  beams  on  that 
place,  once  so  active  within  its  little  sphere  of  hu- 
man existence,  nothing  was  left  of  its  departed 
activity  except  the  one  tepee  of  the  Hunchback 
that  posed  in  its  loneliness  in  the  sun  beams  of  a 
quiet  morning,  like  a  death  lodge  over  the  remains 
of  a  Sioux,  Cheyenne  or  Arrapahoe  brave.  And 
other  than  the  rompings  of  some  stray  gopher  or 
the  whirr  of  the  grasshopper,  no  greeting  came 
to  the  curious  or  casual  caller  within  the  yarded 
precinct  of  the  fort's  fast  crumbling  adobe  walls. 

Few  of  the  old  fur  campany  posts  in  the  north- 
west had  passed  through  more  varied  scenes  in 
the  play  of  human  life  than  did  Fort  Union  during 
the  forty  years  of  its  existence  as  headquarters  of 
the  American  Fur  Company.  It  had  been  the 
scene  of  peace  councils  as  well  as  hostile  combats 
between  the  neighboring  Indian  tribes.  It  was 
here  that  Audubon  had  rested  and  Catlin  found 
turning  point  in  his  journey  along  the  Upper  Mis- 
souri. It  was  here  Maxmilian  Prince  of  Wied 
found  some  of  his  most  interesting  subjects  for 
his  pen  and  pencil.  It  was  here  the  lowly  Lar- 
penteur,  first  a  clerk,  then  trader  in  charge,  con- 
ceived the  idea  that  no  place  was  too  obscure 
to  lack  interest  and  no  story  so  dull  that  it  would 
not  have  hearers.     His  faith   in   himself  was  not 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  198 

without  its  reward  but  it  was  not  his  to  enjoy  nor 
could  he  expect  it.  The  fate  of  resident  traders 
was  uniform;  distress  and  povery  in  their  old 
age  and  Larpenteur  but  followed  in  the  wake  of 
those  of  that  avocation  who  had  gone  before  and 
moreover  was  borne  down  by  recollections  that 
to  him  would  have  brought  joy  in  their  oblivion. 

The  change  in  Fort  Union  from  the  commercial 
headquarters  to  its  total  abandonment  was  first 
brought  about  by  the  arrival  of  a  military  force 
under  Col.  Randall  of  the  31st  regiment  and  the 
survey  of  a  site  for  a  one  company  post  near 
where  old  Fort  William  had  once  reared  its  frown- 
ing bastions  in  opposition  to  the  American  Fur 
Company  fort  for  commercial  supremacy  in  the 
northern  Indian  country,  under  the  leadership  of 
Robert  Campbell,  William  Sublette  and  others. 
Failure  followed  the  opposition  and  the  place  be- 
came a  rendezvous  for  free  trappers  and  their  In- 
dian families,  but  disappeared  in  smoke  after  the 
killing  of  Mother  Deschamps  and  her  stalwart 
sons  there  on  June  27,  1836. 

Military  domination  forced  a  change  of  owner- 
ship with  the  trading  establishment  and  thus  it 
was  the  old  fur  company  was  murged  with  or  sold 
out  to  a  new  formation  thereafter  known  as  the 
Durfee  &  Peck  Company.  The  principal  busi- 
ness of  old  Union  was  transferred  to  the  Indian 
trading  post  then  being  built  several  miles  below 
the  mouth  of  Milk  river  and  known  as  Fort  Peck. 
The  residue  of  stores  and  buildings  were  moved 
down  to  Fort  Buford  the   new    military  post,  and 


199  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

under  the  new  management  became  the  sutler 
store  for  the  garrison.  And  in  this  way  had  the 
great  change  from  autocratic  civil  to  autocratic 
military  government  taken  form  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Yellowstone  river. 

One  late  day  in  June,  1870,  a  young  man  in 
the  wood  contractor's  employ  at  Fort  Buford  gen- 
erated an  idea  in  his  head  for  an  evening  stroll. 
It  was  Sunday  and  a  beautiful  day  it  had  been. 
A  trusty  rifle  was  carried  at  rest  on  his  shoulder 
and  his  eyes  turned  alternately  right  and  left  for 
sight  of  the  curious  and  unusual.  It  was  times 
of  danger  thereabout  from  the  Sioux  bands  under 
Sitting  Bull  Long  Dog  and  the  Standing  Buffalo 
who  made  that  military  post  especial  tournament 
grounds  for  counting  their  "coos."  Over  twenty- 
five  men  had  been  killed  within  the  environs  of 
the  military  reservation  since  the  building  of  the 
fort  in  1 866.  The  young  man  with  the  gun  knew 
the  places  of  these  tragic  scenes  and  in  some  of 
them  had  a  personal  experience.  In  his  outing 
on  that  particular  day  he  would  pass  along  among 
the  scenes  of  other  day  happenings  with  which  he 
had  nothing  to  do.  He  started  for  a  three  mile 
walk  and  would  visit  the  ruins  of  old  Fort  Union 
on  his  way.  He  would  pass  by  the  place  where  in 
the  first  summer  of  Fort  Buford's  varied  history  an 
old  citizen  was  found  with  his  throat  cut,  the  work 
of  two  confessed  soldiers,  who  had  killed  him  for 
his  money — which  was  only  twelve  dollars.  At 
the  first  hue  and  cry  suspicion   had  been   directed 


Long  Dog, 

Sioux-Aricaree  Bandit  Chief 
who  ranged  along  the  upper 
Missouri  during  the  Seventies. 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  200 

to  the  inmates  of  a  South  Assinaboine  lodge.  As 
he  neared  the  gateway  of  the  old  fort  he  was  re- 
minded of  another  tragedy — and  the  last  one  to 
speak  of  before  its  abandonment — namely,  the 
killing  of  two  Mexicans  in  the  employ  of  the  fur 
company  by  Bill  Smith  one  of  the  citizen  mail 
carriers  of  the  Fort  Totten  route.  The  lodge  of 
the  Hunchback  had  been  the  inception  but  not 
the  scene  of  the  trouble.  Smith  was  an  adven- 
turer of  the  fighting  class  as  were  the  Mexicans. 
It  was  a  question  of  direct  aim  and  quick  shoot- 
ing and  Smith  won  out  in  both.* 

On  his  return  trip  the  pedestrian  from  Buford 
noted  a  lone  and  well  smoked  tepee  to  the  right 
of  the  trail  and  curiosity  prompted  him  to  visit  it. 
This  was  the  home  of  the  Hunchback  who  came 
to  the  door  with  a  frown  for  the  intruder,  but  on 
sight  of  the  stranger's  face  her  austerity  was  gone 
and  she  bid  him  welcome.  She  bid  her  charge 
hasten  the  gathering  of  some  dry  branches  while 
a  kettle  was  put  to  boiling  point  over  the  fire 
place.  Meantime  she  opened  a  parfleshe  covered 
sack  and  exhibited  to  her  guest,  beaded  neckties, 
knife  scabbords  and  mocassins  fancifully  decorated 
with  painted  quills  of  the  "fretful  porcupine." 

From  another  sack  of  parfleshe  the  hostess  drew 
forth  clean  cups  and  plates  and  her  guest  was  bid- 
den to  partake  of  tea,  broiled  buffalo  and  fresh  and 

*Another  of  Smith's  many  adventures  is  made  note 
of  in  "Frontierand  Indian  Life"  page  269.  He  was 
afterwards  among  the  first  settlers  to  locate  in  the 
Black  Hills  and  died  there  in  March,  1902. 


20]  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

luscious  fruit  just  plucked  from  medicine  berry 
stems.  She  opened  a  little  buckskin  sack  filled 
with  condiment  of  some  sort  and  sprinkled  over 
her  fruit.  Her  guest  had  a  good  appetite,  for  his 
tramp  had  been  a  long  one.  Their  conversation 
was  conducted  in  primitive  sign  talk  yet  no  con- 
veyance in  its  meaning  was  lost.  His  repast  over 
and  purchasing  a  few  articles  and  a  trifling  present 
to  the  child  the  white  stranger  departed  for  the 
garrison.  It  was  the  first  time  the  little  Indian  girl 
had  ever  received  kindly  attention  from  any  one, 
other  than  her  guardian,  and  it  bore  response 
quickly: 

"Mother"  said  the  child  shortly  after  the  de- 
parture of  the  stranger,  "Mother,  will  that  white 
man  come  again." 

"Yes,  dear  little  one"  replied  the  Hunchback, 
"that  white  man  will  come  again." 

In  the  autumn  of  1872,  a  skiff  containing  three 
occupants — a  white  man,  an  Indian  woman  and  a 
little  girl — reached  the  site  of  the  abandoned  wood 
yard  of  Morris  &  Gluck  and  went  into  camp.  The 
man  had  come  to  refresh  his  memory  and  to  dream 
over  the  scenes  and  incidents  he  had  witnessed 
there  during  the  winter  of  1869-70.  His  friends 
and  companions  of  that  day  were  now  scattered 
with  the  four  winds  but  his  memory  of  them  was 
ever  active.  He  had  been  commanded  by  the 
order  of  which  he  had  been  honored  as  its  chief 
to  choose  his  Indian  tribe,  learn  its  language  and 
give  fealty  to  the  medicine  men  thereof.  For  tribe 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  202 

and  language  he  had  chosen  the  South  Assina- 
boine,and  as  to  his  fealty  to  things  mysterious  he 
had  coquetted  with  and  married  a  priestess  or  a 
witch  of  the  tribe.  He  had  went  farther  than  any 
of  his  brothers  of  his  order.  He  would  nurse  an 
idea  rather  than  abandon  it  without  a  trial.  He 
had  put  the  theories  of  the  Medicine  Lodge  to 
practical  test  and  its  results  would  come  with  the 
future.  His  own  manner  of  life  as  he  saw  its  re- 
flection was  that  of  a  savage  pure  end  simple.  He 
hunted  wild  game  and  moved  from  place  to  place 
in  the  sheer  delight  of  change.  His  nature  was 
animal  and  in  this  way  could  feed  its  desires. 

During  the  five  years  that  came  after  he  followed 
the  vocation  of  a  woodyard  man,  and  located  be 
times  in  some  of  the  principal  cotton  wood  points 
on  the  Missouri  between  Fort  Stevenson  and  the 
Square  Buttes  covering  a  range  of  eighty  miles. 
The  trio  put  in  their  first  winter  at  the  Burnt 
Woods  where  deer  were  abundant  and  fat,  and 
summered  under  the  domes  of  the  picturesque 
Square  Buttes,  enjoying  their  recreation  when  the 
air  was  sweet  and  balmy  and  all  nature  there- 
about decked  out  in  its  summer  finery.  Two  years 
of  their  unit  lives  was  passed  at  Pretty  Point — a 
misnomer  now,  as  the  few  jagged  and  gnarled 
tree  trunks  that  front  Oliver's  county  capital  are 
a  burlesque  of  the  magnificent  grove  of  young 
cottonwoods  that  once  stood  in  line  along  the 
rivers's  front  there.  But  the  axeman  could  see 
no  beauty  in  nature's  best    display    with  his  heart 


208  KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

and  his  soul  calloused  by  greed.  That  beautiful 
grove  has  long  since  passed  away  but  who  among 
its  despoilers  could  speak  thus:  "Those  trees  that  I 
destroyed  were  of  lasting  financial  benefit  to  me." 
Truth  will  compel  him  to  say  instead: 
"Those  fine  young  trees  that  I  wantonly  chopped 
away  seem  to  have  brought  a  curse  on  me  and 
mine." 

As  time  sped  on  a  change  came  to  the  chief  of 
the  Medicine  Lodge  and  his  family.  There  had 
been  no  discordancy  or  family  jars  to  disturb  the 
home  circle  heretofore  but  the  time  had  arrived 
for  this  innovation.  The  adopted  daughter  was 
approaching  womanhood  and  the  eye  of  the  master 
was  upon  her — and  she  would  be  helpless  as  was 
her  foster  mother  in  combatting  his  designs.  They 
were  in  a  land  of  strangers  and  strange  people, 
and  between  themselves  and  their  far  northern 
home  a  tribal  enemy  lay  between  who  would  not 
discriminate  as  to  sex  or  age  when  a  fresh  scalp 
lock  was  sought  for. 

While  the  comparison  might  be  termed  odious 
on  account  of  the  great  disparity  of  station,  yet 
this  lowly  and  unfortunate  red  woman  had  much 
in  sympathy  with  Josephine  the  discarded  wife  of 
the  first  Napoleon.  While  the  desires  of  the 
Corsican  giant  like  our  humble  chief  of  the  lodge 
were  in  kindred  thought — namely  the  perpetua- 
tion of  their  strain — yet  the  discarded  in  each  case 
bowed  to  the  inevitable  only  when  the  inevitable 
came.     While  Josephine  represented  the  highest 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  204 

attainment  of  her  sex — beautiful  and  accomplished 
and  the  head  of  the  female  social  world,  the  for- 
saken Haunchback  of  Pretty  Point  could  not  as 
much  as  say:  "I  have  a  friend  in  need."  But  the 
outcome  was  in  parallel.  Each  suffered  the  buf- 
ferings of  reproach  they  could  not  hinder;  a  fall 
in  pride  they  could  not  relieve;  a  flow  of  silent 
tears  they  could  not  stay.  The  French  empress 
could  forgive  if  she  could  not  forget.  The  be- 
trayed Hunchback  was  an  Indian — and  from  in- 
stillation of  her  free  wild  blood  could  do  neither 
one  or  the  other.  But  there  was  something  she 
could  do — put  on  the  dissembler's  mask.  On 
final  severance  from  her  accustomed  place  as 
mistress  of  the  domestic  lodge  she  was  in  a  mood 
to  court  well  that  plastic  art. 

The  Hunchback  had  one  request  to  make.  She 
loved  her  adopted  daughter  and  desired  to  remain 
in  the  lodge  with  her,  and  upon  the  intercession 
of  the  young  wife  the  request  was  granted  by  the 
master  of  the  lodge. 

In  the  autumn  of  1876  the  chief  of  the  Medicine 
Lodge  with  his  child  wife  and  the  Hunchback  re- 
turned to  the  Fort  Buford  country  and  thence  up 
the  Yellowstone  river,  where  adventurous  spirits 
found  a  congenial  haven  after  breaking  the  cordon 
of  the  Sioux  who  had  so  lon^  held  exclusive  right 
to  the  valley  by  force  of  arms.  The  surrender 
of  Crazy  Horse  and  his  warrior  band  to  the  gen- 
eral Government  and  the  retreat  of  Sitting  Bull 
and  Gall  with  their   immediate    command    across 


KALEIDOSCOPIC  LIVES 

the  British  line  left  the  Yellowstone  and  tributary 
streams,  other  than  the  straggling  bands  under  the 
Sioux  chief  Lame  Deer,  the  whole  valley  was 
comparatively  clear  from  hostile  clans.  While 
the  whites  rushed  in  from  the  Missouri  to  find 
advantageous  sites  for  peaceful  pursuits,  the  moun- 
tain Crows  under  their  chief  Iron  Horn  moved 
down  the  valley  from  the  rugged  Big  Horn  range 
in  pursuit  of  the  last  of  the  buffalo  herds  that  had 
once  darkened  the  plain  there,  and  cropped  its 
sweet  grasses  for  hundreds  upon  hundreds  of 
years. 

The  chief  of  the  Medicine  Lodge  followed  his 
accustomed  vocation  as  woodhawk  until  slack  of 
business  on  the  Yellowstone  compelled  a  with- 
drawal of  the  boats.  He  traded  for  robes  until 
wild  buffalo  were  no  more.  He  then  went  to 
trading  with  the  Northern  Cheyennes  on  Rose- 
bud river  until  their  extreme  poverty  compelled  a 
discontinuance.  He  then  tried  ranching  and  with 
the  help  of  his  growing  family  made  some  success 
at  it.  The  Hunchback  sat  in  her  accustomed 
place  as  doorkeeper  of  the  lodge  and  when  not 
fondling  her  adopted  daughter's  children  was  busy 
with  her  sacks  of  mystery  and  medicine.  In  this 
way  the  family  had  passed  twenty  years  of  their 
lives — 1876  to  1896 — along  the  valley  of  the  Yel- 
lowstone river. 

One  dreary  autumn  day  in  1897,  while  in  a 
reminiscent  mood  and  thinking  of  the  Medicine 
Lodge  and  its  scattered    brethren,    particularly  of 


A  Cheyenne  Indian  Village  on 
Rosebud  River. 


THE  CLOSING  STORY.  206 

its  chief,  and  as  record  keeper  of  the  order  looked 
up  his  whereabouts  on  the  Yellowstone  and  sent 
to  his  address  a  marked  copy  of  the  Washburn 
Leader  containing  some  personal  recollections  of 
the  military  epoch  on  the  river  that  might  be  of 
interest  to  him.  In  due  time  came  a  short  answer 
from  the  now  venerable  and  careworn  chief  with 
the  following  opening  sentence:  "I  have  just 
buried  my  oldest  daughter  who  had  been  going 
to  the  mission  (Rosebud)  school.  As  you  may 
remember,  she  was  near  a  young  woman  grown, 
and  I  am  heartbroken  at  our  loss — though  we 
should  be  thankful  thai  we  have  six  children  left 
to  us  yet." 

Five  years  later  an  ex-par: ner  of  the  chief  in 
the  days  when  the  Burnt  Woods  was  headquarters 
to  a  line  of  woodyards  for  steamboat  traffic,  in  re- 
sponse to  a  supposed  telepathic  call,  wrote  a  let- 
ter asking  about  himself  and  family  and  how  the 
world  was  using  him;  received  in  part  the  following 

pathetic  response: 

******* 

"I  have  but  little  of  life  left  in  me  now  for  the 
ordeal  I  have  passed  through  would  most  kill  any 
one.  My  wife  is  d<nd.  All  my  daughters  but 
the  youngest  child  are  dead — but  Aunty  [The 
Hunchback]  is  still  with  us." 


SKETCHES  OF 
FRONTIER  dfl  INDIAN  LIF 


ON  THE 

Uppee  Missouri  &  Great  Plains. 


by  JOSEPH  HENRY  TAYLOR. 


Printed  and  Published  by  the  Author  at  Washburn,  N.  Dak. 


Contains  306  pages  actual  reading  matter..  Pro- 
fusely illustrated  with  photo-engravings.  Substan- 
tially bound  in  doth.  Title  stamped  in  gold.  PriGe, 
$1.25,  Postpaid. 


SOME  PRESS  COMMENTS. 

"His  extended  observation  and  experience  have  given 
abundant  material  to  fill  several  volumes.  His  sketches 
of  Indian  character,  their  habits  and  treatment  by  the 
Government  are  well  written  in  the  present  volume. — 
Oxford  (Pa.)  Press." 

"It  contains  some  very  interesting  sketches  of  early 
days  in  the  Northwest  and  some  matters  of  historical 
moment  which  will  deserve  a  permanent  record.  His 
story  of  the  treatment  of  Inkpaduta  by  the  early  settlers 
of  Northwestern  Iowa  throws  new  light  on  the  origin  of 
the  famous  Spirit  Lake  Massacre,  and,  while  two  wrongs 
do  not  make  one  right,  it  is  plain  that  there  were  two 
sides  to  the  question  in  the  events  that  led  up  to  that 
terrible  affair."— The  Settler,  (Bismarck,  N.  D.) 

One  of  the  old  timers  in  Dakota  Territory  is  Jos.  H. 
Taylor,  who  resides  at  Washburn,  N.  D.  and    who    has 


been  a  continuous  resident  here  since  1867,  though  be- 
ing here  even  before  that  date.  He  is  a  charming  writer, 
and  has  the  faculty  of  close  observation  usually  well  cul- 
tivated as  is  usual  with  all  frontiersmen.  The  third 
edition  of  his  work  Sketches  of  Frontier  and  Indian  Life 
on  the  Upper  Missouri  and  Great  Plains  has  just  ap- 
peared;  the  first  appearing  in  1889  and  the  second  in 
1895.  The  present  edition  contains  much  new  matter. 
The  work  embraces  over  300  pages  and  is  embellished 
with  good  illustrations.  The  book  is  valuable  from  a 
historical  standpoint  as  it  contains  many  events  of  inter- 
est, and  the  Indian  legends  are  graphically  told.  The 
work  is  one  that  will  interest  every  reader." — Fargo 
(N.  D.)  Forum. 

"Frontier  and  Indian  Life,  Joseph  Henry  Taylor, 
Author  and  Publisher,  Washburn,  N.  D.,  is  a  series  of 
sketches  drawn  from  the  author's  own  experience  of 
over  thirty  years  on  the  Indian  frontier.  As  an  enlisted 
soldier,  a  hunter  and  trapper,  a  woodsman  and  a  journ- 
alist, he  has  gained  a  personal  knowledge  of  his  subject 
from  both  the  red  and  the  white  man's  standpoint  that 
makes  his  stories  particularly  interesting. 

The  volume  opens  with  the  story  of  Inkpaduta  and 
the  Spirit  Lake  massacre,  showing  the  causes  which  led 
to  the  first  Sioux  outbreak  of  history ;  and  later  tells  of 
the  revenge  of  Inkpaduta' s  sons  on  the  battlefield  of  the 
Little  Big  Horn,  and  gives  Sitting  Bull's  denial  of  the 
part  usually  ascribed  to  him  in  that  unhappy  affair. 

Next  comes  an  incident  in  which  a  brave  little  band 
of  Indians  rather  than  be  taken  by  the  foe,  marched 
deliberately  into  an  ice  hole  on  the  river,  and  one  by  one 
passed  forever  out  of  sight  into  the  current  beneath. 

Then  comes  the  pathetic  story  of  "Bummer  Dan,"  a 
white  man  who  found  and  lost  a  fortune  in  Colorado's 
early  mining  days,  and  then  again  the  legend  of  The 
Scalpless  Warrior  and  his  Daughter,  a  tale  in  which  his- 
tory, romance  and  folklore  are  admirably  blended. 

The  Great  Plains  of  1864,  Fort  Berthold  in  1869, 
Early  days  around  Fort  Buford,  With  a  Gros  Ventre 
War  Party,  Bull-boating  through  the  Sioux  country,  and 


many  others  of  similiar  nature  gives  glimpses  of  Indian 
life  and  thought  in  the  early  days  that  are  both  interest- 
ing and  valuable.  Lonesome  Charley,  Buckskin  Joe 
and  others  are  western  character  sketches  of  a  type  now 
rapidly  passing  away. 

Altogether  the  collection  is  unique,  and  bears  an  in- 
terest not  only  for  the  Indian  scholar  but  for  the  general 
reader  who  likes  an  occassional  dip  into  the  unusual." — 
Southern  (Va.)  Workman. 

"It  cannot  be  said  of  Mr.  Taylor,  as  of  so  many  of 
the  writers,  who  take  up  space  in  even  the  best  of  our 
magazines,  that  he  has  rushed  into  print  when  he  had 
no  story  to  tell. 

Thirty  years  ago,  when  all  Dakota  was  one  vast  battle 
ground  for  the  "blood-thursty  Sioux,"  the  "Fost-eared 
Assinnaboines,"  "Blackleg  Anathaways,"  "painted  Gros 
Ventres"  "hidden  faced  Sisseton"  and  other  savage 
tribes,  all  engaged  in  a  war  of  extermination,  one  tribe 
against  another  and  all  against  the  buffalo  and  the  pale 
face,  Mr.  Taylor  was  a  hunter  and  trapper  at  Painted 
Woods  on  the  Missouri.  Strange  indeed,  if  any  man 
who  had  passed  so  many  years  in  this  wild  life  should 
not  have  a  tale  to  tell  that  were  worth  reading  and  Mr. 
Taylor  had  rare  ability  as  well  as  opportunity  for  collect- 
ing material  for  his  book. 

He  has  set  out  in  a  natural  and  modest  way  many 
dramatic  incidents  in  his  own  life  and  in  the  lives  of  those 
with  whom  he  was  brought  in  contact.  Tales  are  told 
of  battles  fought  and  friendships  made ;  of  desperate 
struggles  with  cold  and  hunger  in  the  terrible  blizzard, 
of  Indian  love  and  vengence  from  v/hich  neither  age 
nor  infancy,  womanhood  nor  weakness  could  hope  for 
pity. 

Yet  this  man,  who  surely  knows  them  well,  is  no 
enemy  of  the  Indians  and  his  book  is  no  mere  tale  but 
a  study  of  these  people. 

A  "Fated  War  Party"  is  the  story  of  a  tribe,  "Band 
of  Canoes"  who  made  their  home  in  our  own  Mouse 
river  valley.  The  scenes  of  many  of  the  tales  are  fam- 
iliar to  us  and  since  reading    Mr.    Taylor's    book,    they 


have  an  added  charm,  that  which  historical  associations 
give. 

We  call  attention  of  our  readers  to  the  need  of  foster- 
ing the  love  for  our  surroundings  especially  in  our  young 
people  and  recommend  "Frontier  and  Indian  Life"  as 
a  means." — Ward  County  (N.  D.)  Reporter. 


JKaleicioscopiG  j£iuesy 

j{  Companion  1/jook  to 

FRONTIER  and  INDIAN  LIFE. 


Complete  in  itself.  Contains  over  5JOO  pages  witli  the  eii- 
gravingB.  Profusely  illustrated  with  valuable  and  rare  en- 
gravings, mostly  flue  photos.  Substantially  and  attractively 
bound  in  cloth.    Price,  Sl.OO,  Postpaid. 


SOME  PRESS  COMMENTS* 


"Its  the  best  of  reading  from  cover  to  cover  and  we 
discovered  ourselves  neglecting  our  duties  once  or  twice 
in  order  to  peruse  the  contents  of  this  interesting  book." 
— The  Bottineau  Courant,  Bottineau,  N.  D. 

— so*— 

"This  is  one  of  Mr.  Taylor's  latest  works  in  which  the 
author's  well  known  ability  to  picture  frontier  life  in  all 
its  beauty  and  simplicity  is  again  brought  to  the  public's 
attention." — Mandan  (N.  D.)  Independent. 

-KX— 

"Kaleidoscopic  Lives"  is  the  title  of  an  interesting 
book  of  sketches  of  life  largely  in  the  Dakotas  in  the 
earlier  days  by  Joseph  Henry  Taylor,  author  of  "Fron- 
tier and  Indian  Life"  and  "Twenty  Years  on  the  Trap 
Line,"  with  illustrations.  The  book  includes  some  re- 
miniscences of  the  civil  war  and  breezy  incidents  of  life 
in  old  Dakota  territory,  when  Yankton  was  the  capital." 
— Minneapolis  Journal. 


BEAVERS--THEIR  WAYS 
OTHER  SKETCHES. 

BY  JOSEPH   HENRY    TAYLOR 
Author  of  "Frontier  and   Indian  Life,"  "Kaleidoscopic  Lives,"  Etc. 

Book  principally  about  the  American  beaver,  its  industral  habits 
and  wisdom.  Book  contains  176  pages  of  reading  matter  and  20 
full  page  engravings  of  the  homes  and  haunts  of  the  beavers. 
Loand  in  both  Cloth  and  Boards  Binding.  Price  $1.00,  postpaid. 
Printed  and  published  by  the  author  at  Washburn,  N.  D. 

Marfan  (N.  D.)  Pioneer:  There  is  no  man  in  this  State  or  per- 
haps any  other  State,  more  competant  than  Mr.  Taylor  to  write 
on  the  subject  lie  has  chosen  for  he  has  spent  nearly  all  his  life 
near  the  haunts  of  the  beavers.  There  is  a  tone  and  color  to  the 
work  essentially  Western— it  tastes  of  the  woods  and  the  stream 
and  to  the  lover  of  natural  history  it  is  invaluable. 

-foj— 
(From    Shields'  Magazine — New  York.) 

Now  comes  another  wild  animal  book. 

This  time  it  is  the  real  thing. 

It  tells  more  about  beavers  than  any  book  has  ever  told,  as  far 
as  I  know. 

This  book  was  written  and  published  by  J.  H.  Taylor,  Washburn 
N.  D.  He  is  an  old  school  hunter  and  trapper,  having  made  his 
living  mainly  by  trapping  for  animals  30  years.  He  finally  left 
off  this  nefarious  work  and  established  a  newspaper,  which  he  i8 
now  conducting.*  He  says  he  has  repented  of  his  sins,  and  while 
he  has  many  of  them  to  answer  for,  yet  he  has  atoned  in  a  mea- 
sure for  his  wickedness  by  giving  to  the  world  this  excellent  life 
history  of  the  4  footed  aquatic  engineer. 

, After  contemplating  the  vast  quantity  of  hot  air  about  wild 
animals  that  has  come  from  city  attics  within  the  past  few  years, 
it  is  refreshing  to  pick  up  a  book  like  this  one.  Before  reading 
two  pages  of  it  you  are  aware  that  you  are  following  one  who 
knows. 

Mr.  Taylor  takes  you  on  many  a  long,  winding  trail,  through 
the  forests  and  jungles  of  the  wild  west,  stopping  at  frequent  in- 

*Error— not  now  conducting  newspaper. 


tervals  to  take  up  a  trap,  takeout  a  victim,  divest  him  of  his  peit, 
rebail  and  resel  the  trap.  Then  you  follow  the  writer  along,  stop- 
ping here  and  there  to  examine  signs  left  on  the  snow  or  in  the 

mini  by  various  wild  creatures  during  the  night  and,  and  making 
up  the  records  for  the  next  day's  work.  In  fact  you  realize  that 
the  wilderness,  Which  is  always  such  a  prof  >un  I  secret  to  the  no- 
\  ice,  is  an  open  hook  to  this  old  trapp  t.  You  will  learn  more  of 
the  real  condition  of  wild  animals  from  reading  this  book  than 
you  would  from  reading  a  dozen  of  the  others  I  have  referre  1 1  >. 

Mr.  Taylor  has  domesticated  several  heavers,  some  of  which  he 
has  kept  a  long  time.  He  tells  of  others  that  the  neighbors  in 
the  heaver  country  have  captured  and  tamed.  He  discusses  care- 
fully and  minutely  the  problem  of  beaver  farming,  and  gives 
conclusions  that  might  he  made  of  great  value  to  some  practical 
man  of  means,  who  might  see  fit  to  engage  in  that  industry. 

As  indicated  in  the  title,  Mr.  Taylor  does  not  confine  the  work 
entirely  to  the  heaver,  but  he  tells  a  number  of  fascinating  stories 
about  other  wild  animals  encountered  in  his  travels  and  about 
other  trappers  and  woodsmen  he  has  known. 

The  book  is  not  the  work  of  an  accomplished  writer.  There  are 
numerous  defects  in  its  literary  construction  which  e«use  one 
to  regret  that  his  proof  were  not  read  and  corrected  by  some  ex- 
pert. Still,  one  can  readily  overlook  these  faults  on  account  of 
the  atmosphere  of  truthfulness,  consciousness  and  sympathy  with 
the  wild  things  that  prevade  the  entire  work. 

Every  naturalist  ami  every  real  sportsman  could  better  afford 
to  pay  flU  for  a  copy  of  this  book  than  to  pass  through  the  world 
without  having  read  it,  and  I  believe  that  9  out  of  10  men  who 
do  read  it  will  agree  with  me  in  this  statement. 


Fargo  (N.  D.)  Forum:  There  is  one  man  in  this  State  who  is 
doing  good  service  in  putting  some  of  the  early  histery  of  North 
Dakota  into  shape  so  that  it  can  be  preserved  for  the  future.  He 
is  also  a  lover  of  nature,  and  he  writes  with  this  desire  to  be  close 
to  the  grandeur  of  nature's  heart  always  in  his  mind.  He  is  an 
old  hunter  and  trapper  and  consequently  he  cultivated  a  close 
observation  of  detail,  which  makes  his  productions  of  more  than 
ordinary  interest.  His  last  book  is  entitled  Beavers— Their  Ways 
and  Other  Sketches.  It  deals  almost  entirely  with  the  beaver,  the 
carpenter  and  builder  among  animals,  and  it  is  a  volume  which 
will  interest  and  instruct  both  the  young  and  the  adult. 

This  book  should  have  a  large  sale— because  of  its  interesting 
style,  its  instructive  lessons  and  its  historical  value. 


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