since I've been huntin' for some other dam' fool with a return ticket'." 

 When the work of collecting, very successful, on the whole, had been 

 completed, so far as our time permitted, I made a short trip into the 

 Black Hills, visiting Deadwood and Lead City and going out through 

 the Elk Creek canyon. At Deadwood, I was surprised to meet a former 

 student of mine, whom I remembered as having made a point of learn- 

 ing just as little geology as would enable him to scrape through his 

 examinations. He was practising law in the Black Hills, where much 

 of his business dealt with m-ining claims. He confessed his bitter regret 

 at his folly in not taking advantage of his opportunities in geology. A 

 newspaper correspondent asked me for an opinion as to the Harney's 

 Peak tin mine and its prospects. I declined to express any opinion, as I 

 had not seen the property and, even if I had, I did not pretend to be a 

 mining expert. A few weeks later a friend in New York said to me: 

 "I was glad to see that you refused to commit yourself on Harney's Peak 

 tin," to which I repHed, "What on earth are you talking about?" He 

 explained : "In the New Yor\ Sun's letter from the Black Hills you are 

 quoted as refusing to express an opinion on the tin mine." 



I returned to Robinson by rail, leaving Magie to bring the party in. 

 "Dr. Kean at once seized me and carried me off to his quarters, where 

 a hot bath, a shave and clean clothes soon made me feel most com- 

 fortable." My letters deal extensively with baths and to one who reads 

 them it might seem that I was dweUing unduly on matters of such 

 everyday routine. But no one who has not experienced it, can conceive 

 the joy and delight of bathing after a hot day, when the skin is dried 

 out by hot winds and every pore is choked with an irritating dust. 

 The daily morning bath at home is a very mild pleasure in comparison. 

 Before returning to the East, it will be convenient to bring together 

 what I have to say concerning the disturbances among the Indians that 

 fall and winter, which involved almost all the Plains tribes, though 

 there were local differences of circumstance at the various agencies. The 

 two troops of the 8th Cavalry that we met at Oelrichs were not there 

 on a practice march, but because it seemed advisable to watch the west- 

 ern border of the Sioux reservation. Scouting patrols were constantly 

 observing that border, without irritating the Indians by trespassing on 

 their lands. Through whose fault it was, I do not know, but certainly 

 the tribes at the Pine Ridge and Standing Rock agencies were suffering 

 from insufficiency of food. One of the officers at Oelrichs showed me a 

 letter which he had received from Laura Standing-Elk, a Cheyenne girl 

 who had been educated at Carlisle, giving a very pathetic account of 



C 179 3 



