the needy state of her father's family and asking that the ration be 

 increased. 



In addition to these local grievances, there was great and widespread 

 religious excitement, in which there was a large element that was ob- 

 viously derived from Christian teaching. The speedy coming of an 

 Indian Messiah was promised, who would bring back the vanished 

 buffalo and drive the white people into the sea, restoring the country 

 to its rightful owners. In order to be ready for this great event, the 

 Indians were exhorted to practice certain dances, wearing white sheets, 

 whence the term "ghost dances," which spread all through the Plains 

 tribes. They did not plan an attack on the whites — the Messiah would 

 attend to their expulsion — but there was great apprehension among the 

 white officials and employees at the agencies and, even in military 

 quarters there was much nervousness. 



In his Memories my Brother has told how he volunteered to go alone 

 from Fort Sill, in Oklahoma, to the Anadarko agency, where an out- 

 break was threatened, or, at least, feared on the part of the ghost dancers. 

 He was able to avert the danger, because the Indians had the greatest 

 confidence and trust in him, for they knew that he had their interest 

 at heart and had often championed them successfully against exploiters. 

 The excitement at Anadarko died away and there was no bloodshed. 



In the year 1896, on my way home from Arizona, I stopped at Fort 

 Sill, to visit my Brother, who was then in command of the Indian troop 

 of the 7th Cavalry, a troop made up of Kiowas and Comanches. One 

 evening, an Indian sergeant (Kicking Bird, if I remember rightly), 

 came to the house, where we were all sitting on the veranda. He was 

 invited to sit down and tell us about the ghost dances and, for an hour, 

 or more, he sat and told us this strange tale in perfect silence, his elo- 

 quent hands forming the words and phrases in "sign talk," which my 

 Brother interpreted to the rest of us. A thrilling tale it was and held us 

 all spellbound, no one so much as stirring while the sergeant told his 

 story. The ideas that he described were mainly Christian, derived from 

 the missionaries and school teachers, but adapted to Indian hopes and 

 longings. The return of the buffalo, even more than the expulsion of 

 the white man, was the desire of their hearts, a desire so interestingly 

 displayed by White Bear, our Crow scout on the '84 trip, over the lone 

 buffalo bull shot in the Big Horn basin. 



I never learned who was to blame that, in South Dakota, the ghost 

 dancing led to bloody fighting, or whether wise and sympathetic action 

 could have averted the catastrophe. My friend. Dr. J. R. Kean, was a 



