Our objective that season was the Big Horn Basin of central Wyo- 

 ming, where there is a vast exposure of the Lower Eocene (Wasatch and 

 Wind River formations) from which Cope had made great collections, 

 but we were not so fortunate. Many years later, my colleague, Dr. 

 W. J. Sinclair, made several trips to the Big Horn Basin, with very 

 important and valuable results, but we got hardly anything. Our main 

 camp was on the Grey Bull River and there we had the very unpleasant 

 experience of being washed out by a sudden flood. We were all in the 

 great, conical, Sibley tent, which would hold eighteen men, where we 

 had taken refuge from the rain, and were reading the accounts of the 

 rescue of the Greeley expedition in the Arctic. The newspapers had just 

 reached us and we were absorbed in them, when the alarm was raised 

 and we had just time to get our bedding and equipment on to the 

 "bench" when the flood arrived. It was an uncomfortable and even dan- 

 gerous, but supremely ludicrous experience. 



Our last week on Grey Bull was a time of scarcity, as our provisions 

 were nearly exhausted. I had sent the wagon back to Fort Custer for 

 fresh supplies, but the journey was long and slow. We lived chiefly 

 upon an immense grizzly bear, which the soldiers had shot and which 

 had a very disagreeable, strong taste, even in soup. Nevertheless, we 

 were very glad to have it, as it was so very much better than nothing at 

 all. Poor White Bear nearly starved at that time, for he could not ven- 

 ture to taste bear meat, or soup, for, to do so, would cause all his teeth 

 to drop out, the bear being his totem and therefore taboo. His joy, when 

 my brother shot an old buffalo bull, was pathetic and by no means en- 

 tirely due to having secured abundant food. To the Plains Indians there 

 was something almost sacred about the buffalo, their principal source 

 of food, and White Bear had never expected to see another. 



So long as he was with us alone and no strangers were present. White 

 Bear was as jolly as a sandboy, always laughing and playing practical 

 jokes. When we got into the Yellowstone Park and began to meet tour- 

 ists, the change in his behaviour was fundamental and, to us, most 

 amusing. He became the taciturn and aloof Indian of fiction, as wooden 

 as any graven image; when a stranger spoke to him, he pretended not 

 to understand and would make no reply. That behaviour of the Indian 

 toward strange white men is altogether conventional, a mere pose, as 

 I had learned from my stay among the Sioux two years before, and 

 White Bear's confirmation of the hypothesis was complete. 



When the wagon returned from Fort Custer bringing the first mail 

 we had had for a month and a most welcome supply of provisions, we 



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