himself. When I told of my adventure to a group of ranchmen in the 

 trader's store at Fort Robinson, they were extremely indignant and 

 exclaimed: "That must be So and So, no other man about here would 

 act like that." Had the ambulance been ahead of us, as I thought it was, 

 our predicament would have been serious. 



At Fort Robinson I fitted out for the trip to the famous White River 

 Bad Lands of South Dakota, known to geologists the world over. It was 

 to them that the term bad lands, a partial translation of the French 

 mauvaises terres a traverser, was first applied; it was subsequently ex- 

 tended to regions of similar topography, as, for example, the Bridger 

 country of Wyoming, where we worked in 1877 and '78. As early as 

 1746, the mauvaises terres of the White River were crossed by la Veren- 

 drye, a French Canadian. Colonel Sumner gave me an army wagon, 

 but could not supply the mules and I, therefore, hired a four-horse team 

 from the post-trader, for which we paid $10 a day, including the driver's 

 wages. General Sheridan, on whom I had called at his headquarters in 

 Chicago, gave me an order for an escort, if I should like to have one, 

 though he said that the White River country, where we proposed to 

 work, was entirely safe. 



I took the escort, a sergeant and five men of the 9th Infantry, who 

 travelled in a hght "escort wagon," drawn by four mules. We thus 

 formed quite a cavalcade of two wagons, sixteen men, twelve horses 

 and four mules. Colonel Sumner gave me a copy of his order to the 

 sergeant in command of the escort; it directed him to "report to Pro- 

 fessor W. B. Scott and be under his orders and instructions until re- 

 lieved." This was altogether illegal, for neither the Colonel, nor Gen- 

 eral Sherman himself, could give a civilian authority to command troops 

 and the sergeant knew this as well as any one. While always polite and 

 respectful, he paid small attention to my "orders and instructions" and 

 did about as he chose. He took very good care not to quarrel with me 

 and be sent back, for the men were all enjoying the outing and the free- 

 dom from the monotony of garrison life, but short of that, he was po- 

 litely insubordinate and would do nothing that I suggested. 



Our next stage, of sixty miles or so, to the Pine Ridge Indian Agency, 

 we made in two days, despite the intense heat and stifling dust. For the 

 first time in my life, I found myself among a multitude of Indians, 

 many thousand, in fact, Sioux chiefly, but also Cheyennes and Poncas. 

 For all of us, it was an extremely interesting and novel experience. 

 We had the good fortune to see the Cheyenne sun dance and though 

 the Government had put a stop to the mutilations in which the dance 



1 154 ] 



